Remnants of the Force
by Squall67584
Summary: Order 66 has been issued, and the galaxy is forever changed. While it is thought that all the Jedi were killed, at least one managed to survive. Now she must try to learn the truth about what happened, and try to continue living in this new galaxy...
1. Chapter 1

Hello! This is the first chapter of my story (obviously) which follows a young Jedi after the events of Revenge of the Sith. I came up with the idea for this story, and possible sequels, after hearing the rumor of a live action series set in between the two trilogies. To me, this time period is largely unexplored, and a multitude of things can happen, of course, as long as they don't interfere with what is all ready known. Well, without further ado, here's the story.

* * *

Chapter 1 End of the Line

_Guannk. Outer Rim. Closing moments of the Clone Wars._

The Republic LAAT/i gunship dropped nearly ten meters instantly, creating a near weightless feeling for the occupants inside. Completely surrounding it, blaster fire from anti-aircraft emplacements flew past, missing their targets by mere centimeters. The sky of the small farming planet that was being occupied by the Separatists was a light with red from the blaster bolts, and from the burning wreckage of the disintegrating gunships that several of the bolts had found. Though the situation was tense and wrought with danger, the occupants of the gunship showed no fear, at least on the outside.

Padawan Rika Tymor, the young Twi'lek female apprentice of Master Amminius Mindar, blinked several times as she tried to get a better look at their target location. An explosion of ionic flak jarred the gunship and she had to grab onto a support rail handle on the overhead to maintain her balance. As much as she liked space travel, this traveling into a hot LZ in an unshielded dropship was not her idea of bravery; it was suicide. However, if anyone else on the gunship shared her sentiment, she couldn't tell.

Behind her was a squad of the usual white-armor clad clone troopers that were synonymous with the Grand Army. This squad was led by Sergeant Adelo, who had served along the two Jedi for nearly a year. Each of the troopers carried the deadly efficient DC-15 blasters, while Adelo carried two DC-17 blaster pistols that he kept in holsters on both of his thighs. Though the troopers and Rika had served together for the entire length of this war, she was never fully comfortable in their presence. It wasn't the fact that they all looked the same; in the Force they all felt different, as they were each individuals and not identical copies of each other like droids. What truly unnerved her was the fact that they all looked up to her as an officer and trusted her with their lives to make the right decision. Too many times she had doubted herself, and wondered just how soldiers who were trained for war could rely on a young woman who was trained for peace.

Another salvo of anti-aircraft fire nearly hit the gunship, but the talents of the clone pilot named Buzzer avoided disaster. Rika let out a long breath in an attempt to calm her nerves. Beside her, Master Amminius Mindar looked down on his Padawan and pulled his reptilian lips back in a smile. Mindar had seen too much combat during this war and he was the first to admit so. For reasons that he himself did not understand, he had grown accustomed to these hot drops into heavily fortified enemy territory. Now, as he looked at his Padawan, he exhumed a warm comforting glow from the Force.

"Calm yourself, my young Padawan. Trust in the Force to bring us out of this safely," Master Mindar said loudly over the din of warfare. Rika lightly nodded her head and then tried to maintain her focus on the Force, though the constant jarring maneuvers executed by Buzzer made it hard for her to do so.

Mindar watched as his Padawan tried to focus and lightly smiled at her efforts. He had told her many times before that the Force cannot be strained into focus; it merely should flow into her mind like water flowing to the sea. He was about to remind her of this, when his large pointed ears picked up the humming sound of a comlink vibrating.

Mindar reached out with the Force to enhance his hearing ability and was able to discern that the comlink was in Sergeant Adelo's possession. He was at first confused as to why the Sergeant would be contacted instead of himself if information were to be relayed. But instead of turning to see what the message said, he instead faced forward and listened in on what it might be about.

He concentrated on isolating just the sounds that were coming from the rear of the gunship, and he was able to pick up a muffled sounding voice that lacked remorse.

"_It is time. Execute Order Sixty-Six."_

Mindar narrowed his reptilian brow as he tried to remember if he had ever heard of an Order Sixty-Six. But before he could remember that there was never one that he had heard of, his heightened hearing abilities picked up the spine-chilling sound of the safeties on the clone troopers' blaster rifles being clicked to the off position.

Rika found it difficult to maintain her focus on the Force, so she instead chose to focus on the presence of her Master for comfort. But she suddenly felt him go rigid as a sudden shockwave of fear coursed through him. Without speaking a word, she went for the hilt of her lightsaber at the same instant that Mindar went for his.

Sergeant Adelo was the first to fire. Master Mindar's ignited green blade caught the blaster bolt and sent it flying back into the skull of Adelo. Without having time to fully react, Rika ignited her blue blade and deflected the firestorm of blaster bolts that were now erupting inside the small confines of the Republic gunship.

Blaster bolts pinged off of the interior bulkheads, creating a chamber of imminent death to all inside. Together, working in harmony with the Force, the two Jedi parried every single incoming blaster bolt, whether it was from a trooper's blaster, or one of the many ricocheting rounds that were bouncing about with deadly randomness.

Though the intense firefight seemed to last for hours, in only a few mere seconds it was over. All twelve of the clone troopers lay dead at the two Jedi's feet, though it was nothing that the pair was proud of. Rika was about to question her Master about what happened, but from the corner of her eye she caught the glimpse of a DC-17 barrel swinging out from within the cockpit. Buzzer! In the confusion she had all but forgotten about him!

Mindar saw her look of shock and only had a fraction of a second to react. The blaster fired only once, but the bolt hit Mindar in his abdomen. Rika jumped forward and pierced Buzzer with the end of her lightsaber, and forced the blade up, ripping a large cauterized gash in his chest. His body slumped forward in his command chair, but his body fell on the control yoke, forcing the gunship to dive straight for the rocky surface. The sudden g-forces of the dive lifted Rika off of her feet and slammed her onto the rear bulkhead of the gunship. As she watched in absolute horror as the ground rapidly approached, she fumbled for some sort of handhold to brace for the upcoming impact.

The gunship roared a high-pitched death scream before it slammed hard on the surface, bounced fifty meters into the air, and again hit the surface, skidding for a long distance before the front end slammed into a rocky cliff face.

What seemed like an eternity later, Rika blinked her eyes and wiped the blurry confusion away. The first thing she was able to perceive was the acrid smell of ozone from burning circuitry mixed with the oddly sweet smelling air from the planet Guannk. When her vision cleared up, thick wisps of gray smoke clung to the decking and the ceiling of the gunship and slowly rolled out through the now open side door. Sparks flickered and cast a strange light on the scene, where several of the bodies of the clone troopers were still laying.

She got to her feet and after taking a moment to regain her balance, she found her lightsaber among the carnage and clipped it to her belt, then began to look for her Master. She stepped over the bodies of the troopers, now all laying in unnatural positions after the crash landing. In one of the corners near the cockpit, she found Master Amminius Mindar slumped over himself, but still breathing.

"Master! Are you all right?" Rika asked as she quickly squatted down next to him. His breathing was heavy and labored, and with what looked like great effort, he looked up at her face with unfocused eyes.

"A Jedi is always "all right" with the Force as his ally," Mindar said in a forced whisper. Rika lightly frowned at his attempt to make the situation seem lighter, but she could see that he was only clinging to life.

"We've got to get out of here, get you to a medic station," Rika said as she tried to look for some sort of device that could be utilized as a stretcher.

"No, it's too late for that, my young Padawan." Rika looked into the eyes of her Master and saw that he was right, no matter how much she refused to believe it.

"Master, why did the troops turn on us?" she asked, trying to keep Mindar focused on the now before he allowed himself to slip away into death. Mindar closed his eyes and slightly shook his scaled head.

"They were ordered to, but why I cannot say." Rika shook her head at what her Master said. How could the clones have been ordered to kill them? Only other Jedi held ranks higher than Mindar and Rika, and the order could not have possibly came from them. Rika shook her head in confusion, but she stopped when she heard the sound of another LAAT/i coming in and setting down close by.

"Come on, Master. We have to get out of here," Rika said as she tried to pick up her Master, but Mindar shook his head.

"No, Rika, you must flee. I will remain here and buy you enough time to make your escape."

"No, Master," Rika said as she shook her head, her lekku swinging back and forth. "I can't leave you!" Mindar looked into her eyes and smiled as much as he could.

"Your destiny does not end here, my young Padawan, but mine does. You must have the heart to follow the path it has laid before you."

"But," Rika protested with tears welling up in her eyes, "I can't let you die."

"Have you learned nothing as my apprentice? Death is nothing with the Force; it is only one more step in the grand scheme of things. Now take this. This is my Jedi beacon transceiver. The Council will know what to do. Trust in yourself my young Padawan, and the Force will guide you."

Rika took the small transceiver and then looked at her Master for one last time.

"May the Force be with you, Master," Rika said as she choked back more tears.

"The Force will be with you, Rika. Always." Rika stood from her kneeled position, and though in her mind she wanted to stay, the cold depths of fear pulled her away. Without saying another word, she turned from her Master, and stepped out of the gunship.

She briefly looked around, noticed where the sound of running clone troopers was coming from, and propelled herself with the Force into a lightning fast sprint away from the downed gunship.

* * *

Amminius Mindar, Jedi Knight and Master of Rika Tymor, watched as his only Padawan disappeared out of sight. He took in a large burning breath into his injured body, all the while knowing exactly what he had to do in order to protect her. It would be his final act in this living world, but he knew that once his life essence passed on into the Force, his pain would cease forever.

Approaching now from the distance, he could hear the sounds of plastoid covered boots hitting the dirt. He quickly called the Force unto himself and became a beacon of the light. Though his injuries were severe, the Force helped him stand to his full height and numbed the pain that coursed through his body. Without consciously doing it, his lightsaber hilt found his right hand, and he stepped out into the open, where a dozen clone troopers were now standing, their blasters aimed at his chest.

With the speed that rivaled the quickest blaster bolt, Mindar jumped swiftly into the fray, his lightsaber igniting and removing the heads of two troopers before the others could even react. Mindar himself did not swing the lightsaber blade, nor did he consciously know of every move he made. Instead, it was the Force that fought the troopers. But even with the Force channeled fully through his dying body, he was only able to kill ten of the troopers before a thermal detonator exploded, ending the life of Amminius Mindar, Jedi Knight and Master of Rika Tymor.

* * *

Rika stopped as she climbed onto the top of a boulder and fell to her knees as she felt the presence of her Master pass on into the Force. She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand and tried to focus on her own escape. The sacrifice of her Master was too great of a gift for her to waste by getting caught and killed.

Through the heavy emotions that coursed through her mind, she tried to focus on the Force to make her calm, but it was as if her connection to the Force was now severely handicapped. She could still feel it, and could call on it to move a small rock to her hand, but anything greater than that seemed to be lost to her, as if she was a youngling again. She pushed this new and aggravating development out of her mind and then tried to remember the debriefing details that they had received about the planet of Guannk.

The planet itself was of no significant military value, having no weapon or ship manufacturing plants on it. The only real value it had was a massive grain industry that helped to bolster the Republic's war effort, even though Guannk was politically neutral. The Separatists had decided to attack it to take one food source away from the Republic, however it was also taking a major grain source away from other systems in the galaxy. Guannk itself was sparsely populated by sentients; the majority of the work and shipments were conducted by basic droid facilities.

When Rika remembered this particular bit of information, she knew that she had found her way off of this planet.

She remembered seeing one of the droid shipping and processing facilities farther south of their intended landing zone when they were still in space, and it was to this that she now headed to.

The walk was uneventful and she arrived after only an hour of navigating the rough terrain. From a thickly wooded area, she observed the droid operated loading dock. There were only a few ships, the closest being a heavy freighter that was being loaded now with heavy containers of grain. After making sure that there were no watching eyes in the area, she darted forward with the help of the Force and entered the cargo bay of the freighter.

When she entered the dimly lit bay, she looked around for a place to stow away. She found a small closet containing some clothing and a few work helmets. Giving one last look outside the ship, she stepped into the closet and closed the door.

For some time, she just sat in there, occasionally hearing the sounds of heavy repulsor lifts carrying the cargo containers into the cargo bay and depositing their load before moving on. After what seemed like a long nail biting eternity, she heard the sound of someone talking outside. From what she could hear, it was the Captain of the cargo ship and it seemed like he was arguing with someone. When she listened more closely, her blood ran cold as she heard the familiar voice of a clone trooper.

"What do you mean you're holding my ship here? You have no right to do that! Last time I checked, Guannk was a neutral planet!"

"Not anymore, it's under the Republic's jurisdiction. We have orders to hold all vessels on the surface until they can be searched for fugitives. I suggest you comply."

"Or what? You'll blast me?" Rika listened harder at this point, but there was only a moment of silence before she heard the voice of the Captain again, this time it seemed more stressed. "Sure, go ahead and inspect the ship. I don't know what you're looking for though."

Rika sank back into the closet and slowed her breathing as she heard the all too familiar sound of the plastoid boots clanking on the metal decking. The sound came closer and closer, and stopped outside of her chosen hiding place. For a moment, she didn't breathe, and tried to call the Force to her aide, though it still felt vague to her. Rika held her breath as she waited for the inevitable, however it didn't come. From the entryway of the cargo hold, she could hear the sound of another set of boots running up.

"Sir, Red Group has found a fugitive on the other side of the docking bay." Without a word, she then heard both sets of boots take off and left the ship. Rika then let out a hard sigh of relief. But though the clones weren't there to hear it, someone else was. Catching Rika by surprise, the closet door opened, and she was confronted by the surly looking captain of the grain freighter.

At first he just stared at her blankly, but soon his eyes roamed over her entire body and his normally dumb expression was replaced with a lecherous smile. She was a Rutian Twi'lek with fair luminescent blue skin and matching eyes. Though she thought of herself as being plain, she in fact had a rather curvaceous figure for a young female; something that the scruffy Captain took notice of.

"Well now, what do we have here?"

Though she was trembling in both fear and disgust, she focused her mind fully and spoke slowly and deliberately.

"You see nothing in this closet," she said with a wave of her hand. For a moment it seemed as if her attempt at the mind trick had failed, but the captain straightened his posture and responded.

"I see nothing in this closet." Rika exhaled with relief but knew she wasn't in the clear yet.

"You're going to turn around and forget you ever saw me."

"I'm going to turn around and forget I ever saw you."

"You're going to take off now."

"I'm going to take off now."

"Carry on." With the final wave of her hand, the captain closed the closet door and walked away. Rika slumped back on the bulkhead inside the closet and let out a huge sigh of relief. Outside, she heard the captain bark a few orders to the loading droids, and then there was silence once again.

After a few minutes, she could hear the sounds of the ship's engines starting to warm up and the cargo bay hatch closing with a pressurized hiss. With a lurch the ship lifted off of the ground and began its slow lumbering pace into space. Several minutes later, the ship rocked with a strong pull of inertia, sending ripples of vertigo up Rika's spine; she was now safely away from Guannk and in hyperspace to an unknown point.

In the dark moments that she had with herself in the closet, she allowed her mind to drift back to memories with her Master. She had been with Master Mindar for seven years. When he selected her to be his Padawan, she was nearly too old and was almost certainly spared a boring life serving in the Service Corps. There were times when Rika thought that Mindar had made the wrong choice in her, but he always reassured her that she would make a fine Jedi, and that it was the Force that had brought them together. During the years before the outbreak of the war, Master Mindar had taught her many things about the Force, but now she was uncertain of how she could continue on without his guidance. A more troubling thought that entered her mind was this new inability to call upon the Force as she had once been able to. Perhaps it had something to do with the death of Master Mindar; after all, it was he who had taught her how to focus completely on the Force.

As she thought about this, she jumped slightly when the beacon transceiver that Mindar had given her began to vibrate. She took it from her belt, looked at it and read the message.

_By order of the Council, all Jedi are to return to the Temple immediately._

Finally! There was still hope out there. The Jedi Council must have learned about the troopers turning on them, and it must not have been an isolated event. With all of the Jedi and the Council looking into this event, surely they could solve and resolve the issue. Now that she knew that the other Jedi were aware of the situation, she took comfort in knowing that Mindar's death and possibly other Jedi's would not go unanswered. With this thought in mind, Rika made herself comfortable in her chosen sanctuary and fell asleep.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2 Glimmer of Hope

_Nar Shaddaa. Outer Rim._

Rika Tymor opened her eyes and took in a deep breath as the cargo freighter jarred slightly. From the ambient rumble that filled the ship, she could tell that they had re-entered sublight. Wherever this ship was destined, it must have reached it. She checked the chronometer on the beacon transceiver and seen that only twelve standard hours had passed since she left Guannk.

The cargo freighter began to vibrate slightly, the telling sign that it was now entering into an atmosphere. Rika stood up and briefly stretched her arms, readjusted her soft-blue lekku, and flexed her shoulders to rid the cramps from sleeping in the small confined space. Her eyes briefly fell on the different items of clothing inside the closet with her and a thought came to her mind. Whatever planet, moon, or station this was, her Jedi robes would stand out like a sore thumb in any crowd. She didn't know yet if Jedi were being sought after or not, but she decided to play it safe just in case.

She removed her long dark brown traveling cloak and removed the under robes except for her basic tunic that she wore underneath. She went through the clothing on the coat hangers and decided to take a thick form fitting gray jacket. After she put this on, and remarking to herself that it smelled like a wet tauntaun, she removed her lightsaber from her now detached belt and placed it into a pocket inside the jacket that was originally meant to store a hold out blaster. She briefly thought about taking the rest of her equipment from her Jedi belt, but decided that she would only need the lightsaber and her beacon transceiver, which she placed on silent mode and stuck into the top of her boot.

As she opened the closet door and walked quietly to the cargo hatch, she noticed that she found the jacket to be oddly uncomfortable. After all, she had worn the robes for nearly all of her life and had never worn something as form fitting as the jacket was. She found herself constantly checking to make sure that her lightsaber was still there and in the pocket. Hopefully, when she got out and into a crowd, she wouldn't stand out and bring attention to herself.

Rika nervously shifted her weight from one foot to the other as she waited for the ship to land. When it finally did so, she had to wait even longer before the hatch began to open. Not wanting to create a scene with anyone who might discover that she had stowed away on the ship, she called on the little fraction of the Force she could and leapt high into the air, slipping through the slowly growing space between the cargo hatch and the ship. She landed gracefully on her feet outside of the ship, and was thankful that no one in the area was paying any attention.

With a quick step in her walk, she exited the cargo docking area and found herself on a busy street. She tried not to look like an obvious newcomer, but she couldn't help but look around at what she saw in both amazement and dread.

All about her, tall buildings reached for the sky, each covered with neon lights advertising multiple products in over a hundred languages. On nearly every elevated street, hundreds if not thousands of humanoids walked about either talking to one another or keeping to themselves. The number of alien races was just as numerous as there were people. In the sky, dozens of large air taxis and freight transports flew back and forth on hidden highways. Several starships buzzed in low and landed on multiple platforms that dotted the cityscape. Rika would have mistaken this place for Coruscant if it were not for the level of filth and pollution that covered the entire area with its sickening presence. She had never been to this place before, but she had heard stories about it plenty of times. This was the moon known as Nar Shaddaa; the Smuggler's Moon.

Nar Shaddaa was ran by the Hutts, a seemingly slug like people that were all involved in one form of graft or another. It certainly was no place for a Jedi Padawan to be caught, and the sooner she got off of this rock the better.

Rika pulled her jacket closer to herself, and again made sure that her lightsaber was in its place before she set off with the flow of traffic. As she walked, she tried not to make eye contact with anyone on the street, but she occasionally caught passers-by looking at her and making snide comments. She didn't dignify them with either a response or a glance and continued to walk along the long raised platform where a hundred others walked around her.

She must have entered a merchant district, because she soon started to see barkers outside of shops calling out in multiple languages for customers to come in. One of the shops had a few holoprojectors in the front window, and as Rika passed, she caught a glimpse of the Jedi Temple on Coruscant. The sight made her stop dead in her tracks and she nearly pressed her face through the glass as she listened in on the story.

"_Fires from the Jedi Temple were visible from orbit today as the Jedi conspirators and manipulators of this war resisted arrest from the elite Coruscant Shocktroopers. Supreme Chancellor Palpatine declared that all Jedi were criminals and should be apprehended on the spot for their plot against the Republic and their assassination attempt on the Chancellor himself. Palpatine's speech ended with a majority vote to transform the Republic into the First Galactic Empire, with Palpatine as the First Emperor. More on this story as the news comes in_."

Rika could hardly believe the words that came into her ears. How was this possible? The Jedi, branded as criminals? The Temple in flames? Palpatine now named as Emperor? All of this came as a sudden shock to her, and she went completely numb all over. As she stood there, watching the replay of the same news story for the third time, the proprietor of the shop, a leathery skinned fat alien, came out and shook his hands at Rika.

"Are you going to come in and buy something, or just stand there like a vagrant!?!" Rika blinked a few times and shook her head, and then she tried to walk away. Her head was spinning faster than a class-1 hyperdrive. How many Jedi had been killed in the Temple? Obviously some must have survived and went underground; otherwise the Council wouldn't have ordered the Jedi stationed throughout the galaxy to return. The Council must be mounting a resistance, an all Jedi force that would prove their innocence to these allegations. She needed a place to sit down to digest all of this, and maybe have a drink, so she went into the first cantina she saw.

When she entered, the sickly sweet smell from a dozen different types of smoke filled her nostrils and helped bring her back to reality, at least for a moment. All around the bar were dozens of people, all of a multitude of races, all either drinking or talking to one another in strange dialects that she had never heard before. Someone bumped into her back as they tried to get around her and she instinctively walked up to the bar, unconsciously checking her lightsaber's position again. The bartender was human; at least he looked like it to Rika.

"What'll it be?" the bartender asked as he eyed her up and down. Rika looked at the multicolored bottles that lined the wall but her mind was someplace else.

"I don't care, something sweet," she said as she not-so-nonchalantly looked over her shoulder and scanned the occupants of the bar. Though her connection with the Force was handicapped, she had the suspicion that someone was watching her. As she scanned the bar, her right hand slowly patted the left breast pocket of her jacket. Somehow, the reassurement of knowing that her lightsaber was still there brought comfort to her. The sound of the bartender placing her drink on the bar turned her back around.

"That'll be three wupiupi," the bartender said. Rika quickly searched her pockets and pulled out a 5 Republic Credit coin, but when the bartender saw it he shook his head.

"Republic credits are no good on Nar Shaddaa. You got anything else?"

"You can't exchange it for whatever currency is used here?" Rika asked with a small frown. She didn't want to draw attention to herself, but so far she was failing miserably.

"Do I look like a bank, Dollface?" Rika blinked rapidly in both confusion and shock at the bartender's derogatory choice of nickname. The bartender placed his hand on the drink and pulled the glass back. "Look, no money, no drinkey. Unless," the bartender now showed a wicked bad intent-laden smile that revealed his broken rotting teeth, "you can think of some other way of paying?"

Her eyes went wide in disgust, and she was about to tell the bartender to go to the Lava Rivers of Mustafar when a stranger leaned in and dropped a coin on the bar.

"That should cover it," he said to the bartender and then slid the glass away from him and handed it to Rika. The bartender frowned in disappointment, but he took the coin and moved on to deal with another customer. Rika accepted the glass with a slight smile, though she could only imagine what sort of strange come-on this stranger would come up with. As she took a sip of the unknown green concoction, she sized up the stranger. He was human, probably in his late twenties, taller than she was with dark brown hair and matching eyes, and was a true spacer judging by the way he was dressed. He wore the typical style of under tunic, with the top button undone and the sleeve collars flipped up over the cuffs of his thin blue jacket. Rika also took notice of the ridiculously powerful DL-44 blaster pistol that hung on his hip. The blaster was so unreasonably powerful that it was illegal in some parts of the galaxy.

Rika took her glass from her lips, nodded her thanks to the stranger, and began to go and look for a place to sit down. She didn't take two steps before the stranger lightly put his hand on her arm. Rika stopped and turned to face him again, and in anticipation for whatever come-on he was going to give her, she ran her right hand over the area of her jacket where the lightsaber was. The stranger lightly smiled at her, as all scoundrels do, and spoke.

"You look like someone who's looking for something." Great, here we go. What sort of cheesy line was this leading into?

"And what might that be?" Rika asked as she took another sip of the strangely sweet drink. The stranger shrugged and lightly looked around the bar as he spoke.

"A ride off of this Force-forsaken rock, if I had to make a guess." Rika lowered her glass and honestly thought about it. She was so lost in her thoughts about what had happened at the Temple and how the Jedi must be mounting a counter strike that she totally forgot about _how_ she was going to get to Coruscant. Perhaps this spacer could be hired to take her there, but of course, he could still be trying to pick her up. She knew that she had to play it cool; probe this opportunity and see if it was genuine or not.

"I might be in the market for that. Do you have a ship?"

"That's right. Let's sit down and talk about it," he said as he motioned for a booth that was unoccupied in a dark corner. Rika nodded, and as he led the way, she tried to focus fully on the Force to see if he was trying to trick her. Again the Force was clouded and blurry as if she couldn't fully bring it into focus, but from what she could tell, he wasn't being misleading.

After they sat down, the stranger took a long drink from his glass, which appeared to be filled with something of the color of hyperdrive lubricant, but much thinner. He then set the glass down and looked at Rika with a smile.

"First things first, my name's Randal Sarn, formerly of Tralus," he said as he offered his left hand. Rika, who was now holding her glass with her right, took his proffered hand with her left.

"Rika Tymor, formerly from, well, lots of different places." Randal smirked and then leaned back in his seat.

"Well, Rika, you seem to be in luck. You want to get off this rock and so do I. I just so happen to have a ship, and a fast one. The _Destrier_, maybe you've heard of it." Rika lightly shook her head politely and took another sip at her strangely addictive drink. "Well, it doesn't matter," Randal said with a dismissive wave of his hand. "All you have to know is that it's a fast ship, and I'm more than capable of getting you to where you need to go without any entanglements from these new Imperial patrols."

Imperial patrols? The new government was all ready patrolling space? Of course; they must be expecting an organized revolt from the remaining Jedi and were trying to stop them from reaching the others. Hopefully this spacer was really as good as he said he was.

"Well that's good. I'm not exactly in the mood to have to deal with government officials."

"Who is?" Randal said with a shrug and another smirk. "So where exactly is it that you want to go?" Rika took another sip of her intoxicatingly wonderful drink and placed the glass on the table.

"Coruscant," she said simply. Randal's brow raised high and he lightly nodded his head.

"Coruscant," he repeated. "Of all the planets in all the galaxy, you had to pick that one." Rika cocked an eyebrow at Randal's discouraged tone.

"Is there a problem?" she asked.

"No," Randal said as he shook his head. "But Coruscant is bound to have the most Imperial patrols out of every system in the galaxy. It's going to be tricky getting in there without having a run in with any of them."

"I thought you said you were good?" Rika said, a hint of a joke at his expense was evident in her voice.

"I didn't say it was going to be impossible, just tricky. But don't worry, I can get you there, but it'll cost you." Rika took in a deep breath and then let it out with a sigh. Whatever price this scoundrel asked for, she knew that she didn't have enough to cover it, regardless of what currency he wanted it in.

"How much?" Rika asked calmly. As Randal mulled it over in his head, Rika opened herself up to the tidal wave that was the Force, though instead of the flood of knowledge that she was used to, only a trickle came forth.

"Well, since you've got a pretty face, I'll cut you a deal. Let's say 6,000; and it can be in Republic credits if that's all you got. I don't mind having to make a trip to the bank." Rika lightly nodded at Randal's words, but she wasn't even listening to them. Instead, she was calling on what little grasp she had on the Force to come to her aide. Her Master wouldn't approve, but desperate times called for desperate measures. Slowly, and determinedly, she opened her eyes and leaned forward on the table.

"You don't need payment; you will take me to Coruscant for free," she said calmly and clearly with a wave of her hand, never taking her eyes off of Randal's. Randal seemed to freeze in his seat, staring into the gaze of Rika as if he were lost. Rika didn't wait for the response before she began to celebrate in her head.

"I don't need payment… Look, if you want a ride to Coruscant, you're going to have to pay like everyone else, regardless of whether you're a Jedi or not."

What joy Rika had been feeling instantly fell down to her feet. Her eyes went wide with shock, and when she opened her mouth to speak, she couldn't find her voice. How was this even possible? The mind influence trick was usually failsafe on simpletons like this spacer; why did it fail? And besides, how did he instantly peg her for being a Jedi? Rika stumbled for her voice, and to keep her hand from shaking, she touched it to the left breast of her jacket and to the long cylindrical hilt of her lightsaber that was concealed inside.

"Wh-what makes you think that I'm a Jedi?" Rika asked in a near whisper. Randal took another drink from his glass and smirked.

"For one, I've flown from one end of this galaxy to the other. I've seen a lot of strange things, and one of them was that mind trick you just tried." Rika tried to play dumb, as if she didn't know what he was talking about. Randal merely let out a sigh and rolled his eyes before he lifted his left hand and made a mocking wave in an imitation of the gesture she had tried. Rika's brow narrowed and she crossed her arms. When she did so, she lightly grasped the hilt of her lightsaber through the jacket material to bring her comfort.

"That was merely a gesture, nothing more." Randal shook his head then and tilted it to the side.

"Okay, how about your accent?"

"What about it?"

"I've known quite a few Twi'leks in my day, and they all have the same sort of accent. But yours is different; Coruscanti, but sounds like it's been diluted with a Concord Dawn inflection, as if you've spent a lot of time with the boys in white. Which if memory serves me right, those boys were clones of Jango Fett, a native of that world."

"I've traveled a lot in my life. I guess I just picked it up," Rika said as she felt her temperature beginning to rise. This spacer was really starting to aggravate her. He gave her another wide smirk and then lightly pointed with his left hand in a vague manner.

"All right, that reason might not be convincing, but I've watched you since you came into this bar, and so far, I've counted five times that you've made sure that lightsaber in your jacket pocket was still there. Have an excuse for that one?"

Rika tried to think of one, but she had exhausted all of her options. Instead, she just froze in her seat, staring at the spacer who had seen through her attempts at cover. Randal let out a sigh, and then leaned in closer to her and spoke in a hushed tone.

"Relax, would you? You keep sitting there like that and someone's going to think I shot you with a blaster on full stun. And don't try doing any more Jedi tricks out in the open like that. The Hutts have put a bounty out for Jedi that's large enough to make even the most timid Ithorian try and claim it."

Rika had no idea that there was a price on all Jedi's heads now. Why the Hutts would do that was a mystery to her, but one she wasn't willing to find out first hand. But why was Randal telling her this? Was he planning on turning her in to collect the bounty? If so, he should have taken her someplace more secluded and tried to subdue her there. Or perhaps he wanted to keep her in the open like this, so she would be more hesitant to try and resist. Whatever his reasoning, she knew she had to keep him talking before she decided on a course of action.

"Why would the Hutts do that?" she asked. Randal shrugged and leaned back.

"I guess they figure that this new Imperial government might try and enforce more traffic laws, cut down on smuggling and that sort of thing; all of which would be bad for business. If they capture any rogue Jedi and turn them in to the Empire, maybe they think they could buy a bargaining chip."

That did make sense when one thought about it from the Hutts' point of view. But where did that leave Randal? He didn't seem to be in any hurry to do anything other than to get off of Nar Shaddaa himself.

"And what about you? You going to turn me in and collect the reward?" she found herself asking. Randal raised his brow, let out a sigh and then shook his head.

"Well, you personally didn't do anything to me and I don't buy any of that stuff about the Jedi being responsible for the war. And besides, I think we can help each other out and get off of this rock and leave it far behind us."

Rika listened to his words but was still unsure as to if they were sincere. Calmly she let the slow trickle of the Force come into her and she concentrated all she could on probing the mind of Randal Sarn. From what she could tell, there was no hidden malice or agenda on his mind, and he genuinely wanted to get off of the moon as much as she did, but for whatever reasons she didn't know. She let out a sigh of relief and then raised her brow.

"So how can I help you get off of this moon?" she asked. Randal smiled widely and then leaned forward on the table.

"My ship, the _Destrier_, is sort of, well, impounded by Garul the Hutt at the moment."

"Why?" Rika asked with a slight smile at the shame it must have been bringing Randal to openly admit to this. She knew it was wrong to find even a sliver of enjoyment at this, but after calling her bluff she felt it was deserved.

"For a gambling debt. Now, if you help me get the money I need to pay him off, I'll give you a free ride to Coruscant, no strings attached."

"How much do you owe?"

"Four thousand. I've got five hundred in my pocket now, and with that we can easily win the rest."

"Win?" Rika asked with a raised eyebrow. "I thought gambling was the reason your ship was impounded?"

"It was," Randal said with a sigh. "But it's the only way to make any credits on this stinking rock. So you in?" Rika thought about it and mulled over the moral implications that would go with cheating. Whatever Randal had planned, it obviously had to do something with her being able to influence the outcome by using the Force. But since she was all out of options, she had little choice but to go along with him.

"All right. What exactly is it that we'll be doing?"


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3 Darnek

As Rika followed Randal to the Royal Gambling House and Casino, she ran through the basics of what he had told her while they were still in the cantina. The game that they would be playing was called Darnek, a word that meant revenge in some language that Randal couldn't remember. The basics of the game were simple enough, but there were a few rules that made it hard to understand without actually seeing it.

The game was played not against the house, a term for the casino she learned, but rather against other players. The role of the house was merely to make sure that the monetary amounts were even and that no foul play was involved. For this, the house took a very small percentage of the overall winnings. There were four players who sat at a Darnek table, though the game could be played with a minimum of three. Each player was given a Darnek cup and four eight-sided dice. One player was designated as the Bank, and it was this player that chose the amount that was going to be the wager. If any of the other three wanted to play, they simply had to buy in by matching the amount that the Banker had bet. Once the pot was even, the first playing player to the left of the Banker rolled his dice out onto the table, followed by the next player and so on until the Banker rolled his. The player with the highest numerical value wins. The position of the Banker rotated to the right after every turn, unless the Banker won, in which case he maintains his position as Banker. At this point, the game became interesting.

If one of the players who was beaten by the Banker wished to, they could say "Darnek," and bet a sum equal to or higher than the original bet. If this happened, the Banker was forced to play and no other players could participate. Regardless of who won this, the Banker position stayed with the same player.

Randal had told Rika that this was where the game was addictive, and it was greed that either made players rich or sent them into great deals of debt. Rika had asked if this was why his ship was currently impounded, but he blew the question off and continued to explain his plan to her. He was going to play and he wanted Rika to sit on his right close beside him. They had then worked out a system where if he tapped her on the leg once, she was to use the Force to manipulate the dice, and make him win. If he tapped her twice, she was to let the dice fall naturally.

Rika had agreed to the plan, but she herself was slightly apprehensive at having to maintain her focus on the Force for such a prolonged period. Her connectivity to the Force hadn't improved, and to use it for what he wanted would take all of her concentration. Hopefully he could win the amount quickly and they could get off of this rock.

Randal nodded in a friendly manner to the bouncer outside of the Royal Gambling House and Casino and held the door open for Rika. When they both entered the building, Rika had to blink from the excessively thick cloud of smoke that clung to the ceiling. The entire interior of the building was lit by ambient neon lights ranging in nearly every color of the visible spectrum. A multitude of different gambling tables spread from wall to wall where patrons were playing several different types of game. Rika recognized a Sabaac table where a rather ornery Gamorean was being outwitted by a sneaky Sullustan.

While Rika took in the sights of the Gambling House, Randal stepped up to the window of the Winnings Center and exchanged his 500 credits for casino plaques, ten of them for fifty credits each. Randal took the plaques and then went and nudged Rika with his elbow.

"Come on, let's find a table." Rika nodded and followed Randal as he slowly meandered through the gambling floor, passing several games of Sabaac and even a table with players playing the outdated game of Pazaak. Randal passed a table of Darnek that had an empty seat. After they had passed it, Rika raised an eyebrow and thumbed towards the table.

"Why not that one?" Randal briefly turned to look at the table and then shook his head before he continued to walk.

"No, the players there are small time. They've only got about three thousand on the table, and besides, we need to play someone who's known for letting his greed get the best of him." Randal's eyes fell on a table in the corner where he saw three players and an open seat. A wide smirk crossed his face as he saw who sat on the opposite end of the open chair. "Someone like Zaposug."

Rika followed his gaze to the corner table and saw three players sitting at the table, each surrounded by several females of different species. One of them was a Toong, who's eyes were underlined by thick heavy bags of sagging flesh that showed that he had not left his seat in a very long time. Across from him was a Dug, who was running one of his hands over one of his long braided feelers as a Twi'lek female gave him a shoulder rub. Rika let a small sneer appear on her face as she saw the Dug look her way and give her a wink. But Randal wasn't looking at either of these two players. He was entirely focused on the third player at the table, a Gand who not only had three female companions, but also a large stack of casino plaques stacked in front of him.

"Ah, Randal Sarn! It has been a long time since Zaposug has seen you in here. In fact, Zaposug believes the last time you were here, your ship became impounded for a debt? Tell Zaposug, did you ever clear that debt?" the Gand, obviously named Zaposug, said loudly through his vocoder as he waved Randal over to the empty seat. Randal narrowed his brow, but came over and took the offered seat. A droid server came over and gave Rika a chair, which she then placed on Randal's right side.

"It's funny you should mention that. I'm here to take some of those pretty plaques away from you and pay off that debt," Randal said with a mocking grin as he leaned back in his chair. The droid dealer counted Randal's plaques and then gave him a Darnek cup and the dice. Across the table, Zaposug eyed Randal through his atmospheric mask and began to emit a strange hacking sound that could have been taken for laughter.

"Ha ha ha! It was arrogance like that that put your ship into impound, was it not? You should be careful Sarn, or soon your luck will run out and that ship may not even be yours!" Randal shrugged nonchalantly and motioned towards the Banker medallion that was in front of the Toong.

"Well let's see you put your money where your mouth is, Zaposug. I've got a feeling my luck is going to change." Zaposug leaned forward and lowered his voice to a more menacing tone.

"Change it will, but in who's favor?" Zaposug then turned his focus to Rika, where he eyed her up and down and made a sound that expressed his carnal hunger. Rika tried her best to hide her disgust, but since she wasn't used to the more seedier aspect of civilization, she didn't have much practice in it. The other Twi'lek girls at the table might be used to that sort of treatment, but she certainly was not. Randal noticed her discomfort and placed his hand on her knee and leaned close to her left ear and whispered just loud enough for her to hear only.

"Relax. Most Twi'leks in this area are slaves and are used to that sort of thing. Just play along for the time being." He then leaned back fully in his chair and smirked at the fat Gand across the table. Rika lightly smiled back, though it was obviously forced. Randal kept his hand on her knee, and even moved it higher and more inside on her thigh. The awkward feeling made her cheeks feel hot, bringing a slight hint of periwinkle to her sapphire cheeks. If Randal felt awkward as well, he didn't show it.

"The table now has four players. Tuan'g, your bet please," the droid dealer said in a pleasant sing-song female sounding voice. The Toong nervously rubbed his hands together and quickly glanced at all of the players at the table. After careful consideration, he placed a single fifty-credit plaque on the table, the minimum amount allowed. The droid picked up the single plaque with its spatula, which resembled a permacrete trowel, and placed it in the middle of the table, slightly off center towards Tuan'g.

"The Bank is fifty credits," the droid said smoothly.

"Come on, all that time for a minimum limit bet? Grow up or go and play at the children's table!" the Dug, named Koral, said in Huttese.

"Slow and steady wins the race," Tuan'g said.

"Maybe on Toong'l, but on Malastare you'd be killed."

"Gentlemen, let's keep the game civil, shall we?" Zaposug said as he placed a single fifty-credit plaque on the table for the droid to place in the middle. Koral grumbled to himself, and added his own plaque to the pot. Randal, only his left hand being available, tossed a fifty-credit plaque on the table and waited for the droid.

"The pot is even," the droid said as it waved a hand to Zaposug. The Gand shook his cup briefly, and then tossed out his dice. When they came to a stop, he had a total of 15. The droid gently grouped his dice together without shifting their value in front of him and then motioned for Koral to go. He quickly slammed his cup down on the table, making his dice roll out violently. His total was 21. After his dice were assorted, the droid motioned for Randal's turn. Randal took a breath, and squeezed Rika's thigh once.

Rika watched as Randal began to shake the cup. She concentrated hard on envisioning the four dice inside bouncing around erratically, and when he dumped the cup downwards, she envisioned what sides she wanted to land on top. With a slight wave of her hand under the table that went unseen by everyone, her chosen numbers landed facing up, making 26. Randal leaned back and grinned widely as Koral cursed to himself at the new comer's luck.

Rika then knew that for Randal to win, Tuan'g would have to loose. But the amount of effort it took for her to concentrate on all of Randal's dice had taken more out of her than she had anticipated. If she were going to have to keep this up, then she would have to start to pace herself.

Tuan'g held his cup in both hands and closed his eyes as he shook the cup, praying to some unseen sprite to bring him luck. Rika felt bad for what she was about to do to him, but it had to be done. In her mind, she envisioned two of the dice being a single mark, and when he rolled them, the total became 14.

"Winner is Sarn, total winnings two hundred credits." Randal took the plaques from the dealer's spatula and added it to his own. His total amount was now 650 and the Banker position was his. Randal looked at his plaques for only a second before he placed three hundred credits worth of plaques in front of him. The droid took them and then placed the small stack in the middle of the table.

"The Bank is three hundred credits," the droid said. Tuan'g's eyes nearly popped straight out of his head at the large bet, and he waved his hands to signal his passing. Zaposug leaned back in his chair and eyed Randal through his atmospheric helmet.

"So much so soon? Perhaps you have become over arrogant with your single victory?" Zaposug said mockingly through his vocoder. Randal shrugged and motioned towards Zaposug's plaques.

"Why not take the bet and see for yourself?" Zaposug let his gaze fall to his numerous plaques, but instead he merely shook his head.

"Not this round, Zaposug chooses to pass."

Koral growled as he looked at his own plaques, and then tossed three hundred to the droid. He then leaned back and stared at Randal with an intimidating look.

"The pot is even." Koral dropped his dice into his cup and briefly shook them before he dropped them onto the table, showing 18. Rika let out a sigh at the single squeeze, and knew that she had to focus on at least three of the dice.

Randal picked up his cup, and after shaking them for what seemed like an excessively long time, he let the dice roll out. The four dice seemed to role further than they should have, but totaled 22.

"Winner is Sarn, total winnings six hundred credits." Randal took the plaques from the dealer and counted 950 credits. Almost a quarter of what he needed to pay off his debt. As he counted his plaques, the droid motioned to Koral and spoke in her calm voice.

"Your option." Koral sneered at Randal, and slapped three hundred credit plaques onto the table.

"Darnek!" he spat fiercely. Randal nodded, and placed three hundred credit plaques on the table. After the droid collected the plaques, she motioned for Koral to go first. Again Randal squeezed Rika's thigh, and she concentrated on all four of Koral's dice, picturing them to all be the same low number. When the dice rolled out of the cup and came to a rest, the total was simply four. Koral spat furiously at his bad luck, and slammed his cup on the table before he crossed his arms.

Randal merely smirked at his "good fortune" and rolled his dice. Rika didn't manipulate these, and their total was 17.

"Sarn wins, total winnings six hundred credits." Randal took the plaques with a wide smile, and added them to the rest, making 1,250 credits.

"Ah, your luck has changed, but for how long Zaposug wonders," the Gand said as he sat forward in his seat. Randal shrugged and didn't speak, but he knew that he couldn't continue to win every game, otherwise the other players would grow overly suspicious. Knowing full well that he was probably going to loose, he only bet one hundred and fifty credits.

"The Bank is 150 credits." Apparently this amount was much more likable compared to his previous one, and everyone at the table joined into the game.

"The pot is even." Before Tuan'g rolled out his dice, Randal gave Rika two squeezes to her thigh, and she lightly smiled in relief. The last few hands were making her strain her ability to the last ounce and she needed the break. When all four of the players had rolled their dice, Zaposug had won with 29, and the Banker spot moved to Koral.

The Dug eyed the Toong, and grinned wickedly as he placed three hundred credits worth of plaques on the table. Randal decided to pass this game, and when the option came to Tuan'g, he was about to do the same thing.

"What's wrong, Toong? No longer have the gonads to play with the grown ups? Why don't you run along and play with the little dolls you keep at home."

Tuan'g scowled at the offensive Dug, and against his better judgment, placed three hundred credit plaques onto the table. This made the Dug laugh at his mental victory, which only made Tuan'g frown further. Zaposug emitted the hacking sound again and signaled that he would sit out.

Rika watched as the Toong again shook his cup as if he was praying for a miracle, and he rolled a 15. She felt sorry for the nervous twitchy alien, but she wasn't about to make him win and shift the Banker's spot to Zaposug. She wasn't sure what Randal's plan ultimately was, but that might have thrown a hydrospanner into it. Secretly, she wanted Tuan'g to win, but she lightly frowned when she saw the Dug roll a 22.

"You really shouldn't waste your time here, Toong! Maybe you should go back to chasing rats, or whatever it is you do for a living!" Koral said, followed by not only his but his Twi'lek girl's laughter. Tuan'g seemed to be about to loose his temper, and he then slammed four hundred credits worth of Casino plaques on the table.

"Darnek!" Koral stopped laughing instantly, and he fixed Tuan'g with a death stare. Tuan'g gave the look back, but it was evident to everyone at the table that he was shaking in his boots. Koral matched the bet without removing his eyes from Tuan'g.

Rika felt proud of Tuan'g standing up to the taunting Dug, and since he would remain the Banker regardless of the outcome, she didn't see how it would hurt to help Tuan'g get some payback.

Tuan'g did his usual ritual, and when he rolled out the dice, he jumped for joy when they read 32. Koral jumped out of his chair and slammed his fists onto the table in both anger and outright disgust. The droid dealer raised her voice to calm him down, and he only did so when an enormously large Wookie bouncer came over and growled threateningly at him. After a minute or two of him breathing heavily and fuming over Tuan'g's role, he rolled his own dice, and again slammed his cup down when they read 13.

"Winner is Tuan'g, total winnings eight hundred credits."

Koral was still obviously infuriated with himself for loosing to Tuan'g, and only bet two hundred credits for the next round. Randal matched the bet, while Tuan'g took the moment to ride his victory and sat out. Zaposug idly played with his large stack of plaques and decided to play in this hand.

"Pot is even." Since Randal was to Koral's left, it was his roll. He squeezed Rika once on the thigh, and then rolled his dice. In this moment, Rika was regretting helping Tuan'g in the manner she did, because it made her as exhausted as she was before Randal took his break. She hoped that if she concentrated on only two dice, the numbers of the others would be high enough. When his dice came to a stop, his total was 26.

Zaposug eyed Randal with a scrutinizing glare, and then he looked to his female companion. He eyed her with hunger and quickly rolled out his dice. His total was high, but it didn't beat Randal.

Koral smirked widely to himself and ran a finger over one of his braided feelers as he rolled out his cup. He let out a single curse when his numbers didn't even break into double digits.

"Winner is Sarn, total winnings six hundred credits." As Randal counted his grand total of 1,500 credits, Zaposug rapped his fingers on one of his many plaques and spoke.

"You have much lucky today, Sarn. Either it's coming from you or your new lady friend, who is not only beautiful, but obviously a luck charm." Randal looked up from his plaques and merely shrugged.

"Maybe, maybe not. But to be honest with you, I'd rather keep playing."

"Ah yes, your gambling debt to Garul the Hutt. How long has it been since you have owed him money? Surely you know that it is not wise to let your debts slide when they are owed to a Hutt?"

"Thanks for the tip. Now can we move on, I'd rather not keep Garul waiting any longer." Zaposug emitted the strange hacking sound again, but this time he leaned towards the droid dealer and asked a question.

"How much does Sarn have left?" The droid briefly looked at Randal's stack of plaques and answered the question.

"1,500 credits. How much will the Banker be wagering?" Zaposug ran a large pudgy finger over one of his plaques and then looked directly at Randal.

"1,500 credits worth," he said as he placed the plaques on the table. "Zaposug and you really shouldn't keep the Hutt waiting." Koral looked at the amount that was now in the middle of the table and shook his head at the large stack of plaques. Tuan'g merely stared at the amount and quite possibly could have fainted with his eyes wide open. Randal stared right back at Zaposug and then looked down at his plaques. Normally this sort of bet was madness, in fact, the same sort of madness that had put his ship into impound. But this time around he had a secret weapon, something that insured that he wouldn't loose.

"All right, I'll see that bet," Randal said as he placed all of his plaques on the table for the droid to add to the rest. As the droid counted all of the plaques, he gave Rika a firm squeeze on her thigh and then looked at her. She tried to smile back, but the amount of stress that was now lying solely on her was a tremendously heavy weight. Her concentration on the Force was now more strained than it had ever been, and it took all of her might to summon the ability for one more roll of the dice. How they were going to continue this game she didn't know, but she wasn't going to be able to keep it up much longer.

As Randal began to shake the dice in his cup, Rika thought of the best way to win this game. Concentrating and manipulating four dice was out of the question at this point, and three was still pushing it. Instead, she concentrated on two of them rolling to become the highest possible number, and when the four dice came to a rest, they totaled 21. She let out a sigh and then readied herself for the second part. As Zaposug shook his cup, she envisioned two dice both rolling a two, but when they settled, she was shocked to see that two of the dice had came out as fours, while the other two were a seven and a six. Zaposug's total was the same as Randal's, 21. Randal's eyes went wide and he shot Rika a glare. Rika lightly shook her head in confusion, both as to how that exactly happened, and at what this meant as far as a winner. The latter was answered by the droid dealer.

"According to the rules of the game, in the event of a tie, the game goes to the Banker. Zaposug wins, total is 3,000 credits."

Randal looked at Rika and raised his brow in puzzlement. Now that he fully looked at her, it looked as if she were heavily fatigued. Maybe using the Force for something like this wasn't what it was intended to do. She shook her head at his look, and then leaned in close for him to hear.

"I don't know how that happened!" she whispered in apology, but Randal shook it off and then whispered back.

"You think you've got one more in you?" She nodded silently and then Randal quickly looked to the dealer droid.

"Darnek!" he yelled loudly. The droid turned and cocked its metal head as it tried to understand what he was trying to do. Zaposug too was confused at this.

"But how? You have no more credits!"

"I've got my ship," Randal said calmly. Zaposug was about to protest, but he paused mid motion and considered what Randal had said. Randal's ship was fast and fairly armed; it would be a great asset to own, or at least would bring a wide profit to him if he sold it. But still, Randal would bet his own ship for such a small number of credits?

"You would put your ship up for only 1,500 credits? You're more foolish than I thought!" Zaposug said with a laugh.

"No, more than that. Dealer, how many credits does Zaposug have?" The droid quickly calculated Zaposug's stack and then responded.

"8,750 credits."

"Then for that amount, unless you don't want to?" Randal said. Though he was trying to maintain a level of calm in his voice, the throbbing of his heart and his rapid breathing showed that he was anything but.

"That's a lot of credits, but I've got plenty more where they came from, and besides, your ship is worth ten times that amount on the open market. It is tempting, Zaposug will say that."

"Sir," the dealer droid said, "I feel that it is my duty to point out that rule 10 of Darnek, the mandatory participation of the Banker when a loser claims Darnek, does not apply if non credit items are used for betting." Zaposug nodded but continued to consider the offer. After a few minutes, he leaned back and shook his head.

"All right, Zaposug will go for it. You really should learn to practice some restraint, Sarn. Otherwise you might bet yourself into slavery." At this point, a small crowd had gathered around the table and a murmuring began to break out amongst them. The droid dealer had produced a contract on a datapad that both Randal and Zaposug had to sign before the game went underway. All of this had taken even more time, but the longer it took, the more Rika could rest and prepare for this last game.

The crowd went silent as Randal picked up his cup and began to shake his dice. Rika figured that she could concentrate on four dice, but whether those were Randal's or Zaposug's she didn't yet know. She mulled the decision over and over in her head the entire time that Randal shook his cup, and at the last possible moment, she decided to wait for Zaposug's. Randal's dice hit the table, and bounced in what seemed like low gravity. When they came to rest, their total was a mere 12. Murmurings began to spring up again from everyone standing around watching, and several people started to place bets on just who would win.

Zaposug started his strange hacking laugh again, and picked up his cup. With the sound of the dice rattling around inside, the crowd again went completely silent. Rika then turned her complete focus onto the four dice, envisioning them bouncing and clanging off of each other inside the cup. When they rolled out onto the table, she manipulated the course of each one, and the crowd took in a collective gasp when they stopped and revealed a total number of 10.

Most people around the bar began to cheer for who they thought was the underdog, and Randal jumped up and shouted triumphantly at the top of his lungs. Rika too jumped up, and Randal grabbed her and picked her up in a swift spinning hug. After setting her down, he took the 8,750 credit plaques from the droid, and gave the sulking Zaposug a wink and a smile.

"Well Zaposug, my old friend, it's been fun, but I've got a debt I have to pay. With a bit of luck, I'll never see you again."

As Randal and Rika walked over to the Winnings Center to exchange their plaques for real credits, Zaposug fumed with anger at not only loosing, but by being utterly humiliated in front of so many people. When word of this loss got out, the Gand might hear of it, and then his honor would be forever tainted. He would have to drop his name of Zaposug, and return to simply calling himself Gand. As he sat fuming in his own anger, he thought about the last words that Randal had said to him.

"Not even _you_ are that lucky Randal Sarn."


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4 Quick Departure

"Now remember, no sudden movements or anything like that when we get inside. Hutts usually have all sorts of unsavory characters hanging around them, and Garul's no exception," Randal explained as he led Rika through the busy streets of Nar Shaddaa.

"So if Garul is as bad as you keep making him out, how did you end up having dealings with him?"

"Let's just say it was a bad decision on my part. Oh, and Garul's not exactly a _he_." Rika gave Randal a quizzical look as they continued to walk through the busy pedestrian traffic. Though the streets were just as crowded as they were before, she did notice that not so many eyes followed her now that she was walking with Randal. Whether that was because they thought she was taken, or maybe because Randal looked tough, she wasn't certain.

"So, Garul is female?" Rika asked.

"Not exactly." Randal briefly paused and gave a small smile of humor at Rika's expense. "It's hard to believe that you're a Twi'lek and yet you know nothing about the Hutts." Rika shrugged and then Randal began to lead the way again.

"I may be a Twi'lek, but I really don't know much about the culture. I was taken when I was only six months old. I think of Coruscant more as my home than I do Ryloth."

"You and me both, sister. Here we are; let me do the talking." Rika looked up at the immense tower that Randal had indicated. The tower was much like the rest of Nar Shaddaa, but was much taller and seemed to be better maintained than the rest. There were few windows on its soaring façade, but the top floor had one extravagant transparisteel penthouse window. On the street level, there was only one set of double doors and these were guarded by two heavily armed individuals. One of them was a Weequay and the other a Twi'lek male. When these two saw Randal and Rika approaching, they stiffened up and halted their progress with a flat-palmed hand.

"What business have you, Spacer?" the Weequay asked.

"I've come to pay off a debt to Garul," Randal said. The Weequay looked to his partner, who in turn grinned widely and spoke in Huttese.

"We've been waiting for you to finally come in. One more day and Garul would have placed a price on your head." The two guards then began to share a hardy laugh, but when the Twi'lek caught a glimpse of Rika, he stopped and eyed her from head to tail. He ran his tongue over his spiked teeth and spoke in just a whisper.

"You ever have it so good that your lekku stand straight?" he asked in his native Twi'lek tongue. Rika knew that he was talking to her, but she did not understand the language. After a moment of awkward silence, the Twi'lek security guard took on a look of confusion and then looked at Randal and switched back to Huttese.

"What's wrong with your woman? Every Twi'lek knows the native tongue." Randal briefly gave Rika a sideways glance and quickly came up with a cover.

"She's mute." The Twi'lek guard nodded and then grinned wickedly again.

"Ah, a quality that some might find beneficial. She could fetch a handsome sum on the slave market if you're interested." Randal lightly shook his head and started to move past the guards.

"She's not for sale, now if you don't mind, I'd like to pay this debt and get on with my business." The two guards let them pass, and as Rika walked through, they both eyed her backside.

Inside was only a small lobby area with a room where two other guards were lounging. The doors to the turbolift were open, so they stepped inside and Randal hit the button for the top floor. As the turbolift accelerated upwards, Rika shifted her weight to the other foot and raised an eyebrow.

"What did that guard say to me?"

"No idea, but you can bet it wasn't something polite."

"I've had enough of betting for one lifetime," Rika said more to herself than to him, but Randal caught it and smirked. The turbolift raced upwards into the tall tower, and with a lurching feeling of momentum, it came to a stop. When the doors opened, Randal and Rika stepped out.

What they stepped into was a large expanse of sin and gluttony. The large penthouse must have had over a hundred different beings in it, all lounging and talking to each other as they shared one vice or another amongst themselves. A band was playing in one corner playing the type of alien jazz that seemed to be popular in the Outer Rim. In the center of the room was a dance floor where several Twi'lek females that were wearing nearly nothing were dancing erotically to those who sat around them. Situated on a large pedestal where everything in the room could be observed, sat the lounging rotund form of Garul the Hutt.

Randal lightly nodded towards the Hutt and began to make his way over to him. He went around the dance floor and let the dancers continue on, because he knew that it would only upset the Hutt if his entertainment was distracted; and the last thing that Randal wanted to do now was upset the Hutt. When he was almost within earshot of the slug-like gangster, a Quarren majordomo stopped him and asked what his business was with the Hutt.

"I'm here to pay a debt off. Why, you have some sort of problem with that?" Randal said as the majordomo took a defensive stance. He looked as if he was about to call over the guards, but Garul the Hutt began to laugh with a deep resonant tone and motioned with a hand to let Randal approach. Randal gave the majordomo one final dirty look and then approached the Hutt, but only got as close as he was willing to get.

"So," Garul began in Huttese, "you finally come to pay off your debt. One more day, and I would have placed a price on your head."

"So I've heard," Randal said. "Here's the four thousand I owe you. Now can I get that security code from you so I can get the hell off this rock?" Garul looked at the credit chip that Randal had in his hand and then began to laugh once more.

"Were it so easy, Sarn. The debt was for four thousand, but some time has passed since then. A certain amount of interest you owe me now along with the original debt."

"What? It's only been a week! You never said anything about interest," Randal tried to protest, but he knew that there was not much room to argue with a Hutt.

"Perhaps you should have asked when you took the loan, but that does not matter now. You owe me more than four thousand."

"Fine," Randal said as he let out a frustrated sigh. "How much do I owe you?"

"Hmm, let me see. I believe that five thousand total would be fair. Wouldn't you agree?" Randal blinked at the amount, but he wasn't going to argue any further. A thousand extra credits was a ridiculous amount to have to pay, but if it meant getting off of Nar Shaddaa in one piece, so be it.

"Fine, here's your credits. Now the code?" Garul took the credits and smiled widely with his slime covered lips. He briefly looked back at Randal when he mentioned the code, and Garul lightly waved his hand towards his majordomo. Randal went to the Quarren and received a datapad from him with the security code. Randal took it and started to walk away. As he caught back up to where Rika was waiting, Garul called out over the noise from the music.

"Perhaps if you come back this way, we can do business, no?" Randal lightly nodded and forced a smile, then took Rika by the arm and quickly got back to the turbolift. Whether the Hutt said anything else or not, he wasn't sure. He was only glad that the turbolift was now heading back towards the first floor. When they exited the turbolift and left the building, Randal led the way to the Hutt's docking bay. As they walked, Rika could sense the tension that had been in Randal lessen to nearly nothing at all. She could see that he was smiling widely, and knew that it came from knowing that he wasn't going to get a death mark placed on his head. She could see how something like that would definitely be a problem on a planet like this, where nearly everyone was somehow working for one of the Hutts in some way or another.

When they entered the large spacedock sector, Rika took the time to look at all of the multiple hangars that were all over the area. Many of them were simply platforms exposed to the open air, and others were in alcoves where magnetic field gates kept the ships from getting out. Rika didn't have to ask to know that Randal's ship was stuck behind one of these.

Randal led the way to a loading dock area, where a Rodian checker was observing the loading droids unload a cargo ship. He briefly looked over at Randal and went back to his duties. Randal had to clear his throat to again get the Rodian's attention.

"Here, it's a security code so I can get my ship back." The Rodian took the card to confirm the code, then looked at Randal and asked a question.

"What bay number is it?"

"Sixty-six," Randal said. The Rodian nodded and picked up a comlink on his belt and called the central dock control station.

"Unlock bay 66's magnetic field." He was answered by a confirmative beep from a droid and then the Rodian replaced the comlink on his belt. "All right, it's open." Randal nodded and then went to a railing to look over at the adjacent docking bays. Rika joined him at the railing, and he pointed out his ship.

"There she is, the _Destrier_." Rika could see one of the bay's blue magnetic fields drop, and inside was the ship he was pointing at. To her, it looked much like the type a ship a smuggler would have, except his looked a little less worn and newer than some she had seen. It had a circular disc shape for the main hull, but there were two bracing arms on its starboard side that connected the main hull to a long tubular section that housed the cockpit. True to Randal's spacer persona, the ship was modified, most probably illegally, with two large twin laser cannons that were mounted on the ventral and dorsal sides of the ship.

"So what do you think?" Randal asked with a smirk. Rika shrugged lightly and shook her head.

"I don't know much about ships to have an honest opinion, but it looks like it's in fair shape. Is it fast?" Randal let out a quick laugh and nodded his head.

"It's fast enough to outrun any patrol ships. Plenty for where you need to go, sister." Randal pushed off from the railing and began to lead the way to the docking bay. As they walked, he pulled out a comlink from his jacket and thumbed it on.

"Geefive? Get her primed up for preflight. We're leaving this rock." The enthusiastic whistles and beeps from an astromech droid answered back through the comlink before Randal replaced it in his jacket. As he did so, Rika narrowed her brow and gave him a funny look.

"You have an astromech droid aboard the ship?" she asked.

"Yeah, Geefive's my partner in crime you might say. Me and him go back a long way. I may fly the ship, but he's the one who keeps it in peak condition; something that he reminds me of whenever he gets the chance." Rika nodded, but this led her to another question.

"But if you had an astromech, why didn't you just have him slice into the docking bay computer and shut down the magnetic field?" Randal shook his head and laughed aloud.

"Because unlike the Republic, or the Empire now, the Hutts don't design their docking bays with access terminals for droids in them. And besides, it isn't a good idea to try and skip out on a debt you owe a Hutt. They've got ways of finding you, and then you'd have to answer to their sick view of justice." Rika nodded in silent agreement and could understand the logic in what he had said. But of course, those designs that were used by the Republic were mainly military installations. The possibility of any civilian interaction was slim to none. But still, there had been a few times during her missions that an astromech droid was able to utilize a computer terminal, so perhaps there was some relevance to not having terminals in military installations that were easy to access.

But these thoughts instantly disappeared from her mind when they turned the corner to enter docking bay 66. The _Destrier_ was there waiting for their arrival, but so were Zaposug and four brutish looking lackeys, all of them wearing heavy blaster pistols on their legs. Randal briefly paused long enough to look at the five, and then whispered to Rika.

"Try to act casual and just keep heading for the ramp." Randal then put on a large fake smile and started to walk towards the five. Zaposug titled his head and made his patented hacking sound that passed for laughter.

"Randal Sarn, Zaposug sees that you have paid your debt to Garul the Hutt. A wise decision if Zaposug must say." Randal nodded and eyed the four other thugs that were starting to spread themselves out. He didn't have to continue watching them to know that they were trying to encircle them.

"So did you come down here to see us off? That's very nice of you," Randal said with a heavy dose of ridicule present in his voice. Zaposug eyed Randal through his atmospheric helmet and lightly shook his head.

"No, Zaposug came here to talk about the Darnek game. You played well tonight, perhaps even too well for your skills." Randal and Rika were now only ten meters away from the boarding ramp, but it was still too far to just try an all out sprint for the ramp and hope that they didn't get shot. Randal had to keep Zaposug talking so they could get closer to the ramp.

"Well, I was just lucky tonight. I'd love to talk Darnek strategies with you Zaposug, but we've got a schedule to keep, so we'll be on our way." Randal tried to step around Zaposug, but the Gand moved to keep himself between Randal and his ship.

"Luck is a funny thing, Randal Sarn. Zaposug himself knows for a fact that you have very little of it. No, the only one who was lucky at the table tonight was your female companion." At this last part, he looked Rika over with a lustful gaze and lightly growled with carnal intent.

"Her, lucky? Come on, Zaposug. You of all people should know that females are anything but lucky, especially Twi'leks. Wasn't it a Twi'lek who wrecked your speeder a few days ago?" Zaposug growled and glared at Randal through his helmet. That particular incident had also brought him shame, but the slave girl in question's death had bought him back his pride.

"Even so," Zaposug said with malice-laced words, "This Twi'lek girl is special in some way, and I must insist that she come with me." Randal's spine went rigid and he gave Zaposug a stern glare.

"Over my dead body!" Zaposug merely nodded and spoke with a slick tone to his mechanical sounding voice.

"That's the plan!" In an instant, Zaposug produced a short vibroblade from his tunic sleeve and lunged forward with a speed that was not expected from one of his size. Randal barely had enough time to register what was happening, though he did pull his blaster out of his holster. The vibroblade would have been buried deep in his ribs, but the sudden slash from a blue glowing lightsaber cut the blade in half. Rika finished up her quick sweeping motion by turning quickly and pointing the tip of her lightsaber in the direction of Zaposug, who had fallen back after the sudden surprise attack. For a brief moment, Zaposug and his thugs merely stared at the blue glowing blade and the young Twi'lek who wielded it.

"A Jedi! Attack!" Zaposug yelled as his senses came back to him. The four thugs instantly reacted to the order and reached for their blasters, but Randal was quicker. His first shot hit one square in the chest, sending him flailing back where he hit the ground lifeless. By the time Randal recovered from the recoil and aimed at another, the remaining four began to open fire.

Rika quickly spun her lightsaber and deflected the incoming blaster bolts, though they were coming at her at such a speed that she wasn't able to deflect them directly back at their attackers. Knowing that they were still standing out in the open, Zaposug and his thugs ran for the cover of random supply crates and began to fire blindly from behind them. Randal quickly holstered his blaster and ran for the ramp, quickly followed by Rika, who still had her lightsaber activated.

Once the two were inside the ship, Randal hit the ramp button and the entry ramp quickly rose back up and sealed itself with a hiss. Randal ran through the main cabin space and through the cockpit hatchway and jumped into the pilot's chair. Rika followed close behind him and took a seat in the co-pilot's chair. As Randal began to thumb over the ship's systems to manual control, Rika heard a droid rolling up behind them. She turned around and saw the astromech droid that Randal had been talking to before. Randal quickly turned around and yelled for the droid to get the shields up to maximum. The droid beeped a quick response and then took his spot behind Rika's chair and plugged himself in through a standard astromech access terminal. Within a millisecond, a quick blue shimmer passed over the hull of the ship, and now all of the blaster fire was ricocheting off of the shields harmlessly.

Randal quickly engaged the repulsorlift engines and the _Destrier_ lifted off of the docking bay with a quick and sudden lurch. With a swift spin, the ship turned to face outwards and with a roar and a jerk of inertia, she blasted out of the docking bay and began to climb steadily towards the safety of open space.

As the ship roared off and began to disappear in the distance, Zaposug moved away from his cover and watched the bright dot that was the _Destrier_ slowly shrink away into the stars. His breathing picked up steadily, and with a sudden burst of anger, he slammed his blaster onto the deck and let out a loud and obscene curse in his native tongue. Not only had Randal Sarn humiliated him in a game of Darnek, but he had done so with the help of a Jedi! How foolish he was to not see that it was the only way that he had become so lucky all of a sudden. The thought drove him to madness with his furious anger. Surely the Gand would here of this, and unless he was able to recover his pride and honor soon, he would be excommunicated from his people forever. Something would have to be done about this, and he knew exactly who was right for the job.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5 A Matter of Pride

Destrier_. __In hyperspace route to Coruscant_.

Rika stared blankly at the HoloNet report she watched at the small round table inside the main cabin. Randal and the astromech droid were still in the cockpit plotting their hyperspace route to Coruscant to the very last detail. Rika had only stayed in the cockpit for a minute or so after they had made the jump into hyperspace. The strange blue luminescent kaleidoscope effect of hyperspace had always been strange and uncomfortable to her. It was said that if a person stared at the temporal vortex for too long, it could make a person go insane. Whether this was true or not, Rika didn't want to find out.

Instead, she watched the latest news report from Coruscant, and it only made her feel worse. Several of the Republic Senators that she had known who were opposed to the Clone Wars the entire time of the conflict were now either under suspicion from the Internal Security Bureau, or were now being found dead due to all too convenient accidents. The official reports weren't saying that any foul play was involved, but it didn't take a scholar to read between the lines. There were also numerous reports that were saying that it was the Jedi's fault for bringing about the war in an attempt to overthrow the government and take control of the galaxy. Disgustedly, she switched off the holo-feed and leaned back in her seat as Randal walked into the cabin. He leaned against the bulkhead and gave her a smirk befitting of a scoundrel.

"I don't think we're going to have to worry about any run-ins with these new Imperial patrol ships. Geefive's plotted a course that should keep us well off of their radar." Rika didn't look up from her stare at the blank holo table and only made a noncommittal sound at Randal's words. Randal shook his head and then rolled his eyes as he took a seat at the table opposite her.

"Hey, it's harder than it sounds, I can assure you. Plotting hyperspace routes that go off of the beaten paths isn't that easy. Make one mistake and you might get too close to a star or fall into the pull of a black hole and never be heard from again." Rika looked up as if she were caught not listening and lightly shook her head.

"Oh, I'm sorry. My mind's someplace else right now."

"Well where is it?" Randal jokingly asked as he lounged back in his seat. Rika let out a deep breath and rested her head on her palms as she leaned on the surface of the holo table.

"I'm just having a hard time understanding how everyone believes that it was the Jedi who orchestrated this war. I mean, that thought is preposterous, but people still believe it anyways." Randal cocked an eyebrow and let out a quick sarcastic breath.

"You Jedi really don't have a clue, do you?" Randal asked as he shook his head.

"What?" Rika asked as she looked up, giving Randal both a confused and defensive look.

"Look," Randal said as he leaned forward on the holo table and gave Rika a truly sincere face. "Most people in the galaxy, hell, I'd say a good 99 percent of them, have never had dealings with Jedi. I doubt if they could even tell one if they saw one. All they have to go by is the stories; stories that tell of a strange order of warrior monks that can influence minds, make people do things and think things that they normally wouldn't. Stories that tell of how they can move large objects with just their minds, and throw them clear across a city. Other stories tell about how they can deflect deadly blaster bolts with their laser swords, and how they can even throw lightning from their hands."

"That one's actually not ours," Rika commented quietly.

"Does it matter?" Randal said as he shrugged his shoulders exaggeratedly. "Who's gonna tell them differently? Remember, these people have never seen a Jedi before. And if any of them actually did read a history holo, all the stories tell about how they led armies in the wars during the times of the Old Republic. Add that with the fact that a large percentage of the population is still highly superstitious, and you have a lot of people who are more likely to fear the Jedi than they are to trust them. So when it comes down to it, who are they going to trust? A mystery order of monks that command powers they've only heard about in fairy tales, or an army that they can physically see made out of something they can identify with, or at least more than they can with Jedi?"

Rika sat back in her seat and crossed her arms in denial. But as she thought about what Randal had said, it sadly made sense. She remembered the times before the war, when she would walk behind her Master, watching the citizens of whatever world they were on as they made their way through. She used to think that they looked at them out of wonder and astonishment, moved out of their way out of respect and reverence. But she could see now that they looked on in fear of the unknown, moved not from respect, but out of terror at what powers they thought that they had at their command. She understood now how the people of the galaxy could believe the Emperor's lies, and she fought back tears as she regretted not reaching out to the people when she had the chance.

"And what do you believe?" Rika asked so quietly that it was nearly a whisper. It was all she could do from breaking down into full on tears.

"Me? Well, I've travelled all over this galaxy, and I've seen a lot of stuff that honestly I couldn't even try to explain. And unlike the rest of the galaxy, I've had dealings with Jedi before. Not often, only once before I ran into you actually, and it didn't last long, but it was enough to dispel most of the myths that are out there. I'm not saying that I understand everything or even anything about your group, but I know enough to know that Palpatine is full of bantha poodoo."

"One of the reports on the Net says that four Jedi Masters tried to assassinate the Chancellor. It didn't mention who they were, but it says that they were eliminated while torturing him." Randal let out a laugh and shook his head.

"Well there's definitely more to that story than they're letting on. How could an old politician like him take on four Jedi? And why would four need to go and get him in the first place? That stinks worse than a Bantha in heat." Rika raised a brow at the unique euphemism Randal chose and was about to ask why he chose that particular one when Randal's astromech droid rolled in from the cockpit and started to beep and whistle in a manner that seemed a bit annoyed.

"Relax, Geefive, there hasn't been an opportunity to introduce you yet. Rika, this is R3-G5, or Geefive for short." Rika nodded at the odd mannered droid, who performed a slight bow of his cylindrical body when Randal motioned towards him. He looked like most any other astromech droid that she had ever encountered, and in fact the only difference in any of them was their panel colors. Geefive's main body was white, though it had been some time since he had a detailed cleaning. On the front of his white exterior was a large diagonal slash of light gray; whether this was a previous paint color coming through or a mark on the existing color, she couldn't tell. His dome was a simple brushed stainless durasteel and his accent panels were painted black. She found it slightly odd that Randal referred to the droid as his partner and not his property, as if the little droid were actually a person. The only droids that she had ever encountered were the communal property of the Temple, and she never thought of them as anything but. However, this particular droid showed several mannerisms that were like a personality, an obvious effect of not having a memory wipe for some time.

"Geefive, this is Rika Tymor, a Jedi." Rika forced a smile as the droid seemed to perk up and exam her with his ocular receptor. After a brief moment where the droid gave her the once over, he shifted his gaze to Randal and began to whistle and beep in an enthusiastic manner as he wobbled back and forth on his two main legs. Randal listened to Geefive and then cracked a wide smile as he nodded.

"Yeah, she fits in all right." Rika gave Randal a confused look and then crossed her arms.

"What does that mean?" Randal shook his head and then shared a look with Geefive.

"Geefive says he saw a report that said all Jedi should be considered hostile fugitives, which means you fit right in here." Rika gave a quizzical smirk to the droid, who twittered a happy sound back. Rika then looked at Randal and leaned back in her seat.

"So I take it you understand the astromech language?" she asked. Randal shrugged and responded.

"More or less. There's a few phrases he might say that I can't figure out, but for the most part I can understand him. After all, we've been together for over five years."

"And you've never given him a memory wipe in that time?" she asked. Geefive instantly sounded an offensive buzzer and turned to face Rika, but Randal calmed him down before anything else happened.

"Whoa, whoa, buddy. She didn't mean anything by it. And no, that would be the same as killing him."

"I didn't mean anything by it, honestly Geefive," Rika said, feeling a tad bit silly for talking to a droid as if it were a person. "I've never had a droid," Rika said, carefully avoiding the word "owned" in her sentence. "I just heard that they were supposed to get routine memory wipes to avoid eccentric tendencies."

"Well, it's those eccentric tendencies that make Geefive who he is. Without them, he would be just a simple astromech droid that only did what it was told. What would the fun in that be?" Rika opened her mouth to say something, but couldn't find anything to say. Geefive twittered something it thought was comical to Randal, but he only smirked slightly and shifted his gaze to the lifeless holo table.

Rika rested her head on the table, and when she looked down at her boots, she saw the beacon transceiver still where she had left it. Though it was well hidden, she could see a red blinking light going off. With everything that was going on, she had forgotten that she had placed it on silent mode. She pulled it out and read the short message. When she was done, her eyes went wide, and all the air in her lungs left, leaving her feeling empty and hollow inside, as if the very deck which supported her had suddenly fallen out. Randal could see the sudden change in her eyes and leaned forward to see what was wrong.

"It's a message from the Temple. It says to stop what I'm doing immediately and go into hiding." Randal listened to the shocked Rika and then he narrowed his brow and slowly shook his head.

"Were you heading to Coruscant because of an order?" Rika briefly looked Randal in the eyes and nodded. He then scratched the back of his head as he thought, and then turned the holo table back on. He quickly scanned through several different stories and images that were stored in the recent memory from the last signal the table was able to receive before they went into hyperspace and stopped when he found the one he was looking for. It was an image of the Jedi Temple on fire, with several large black plumes of smoke rising from the towers. As he crossed his arms and ran a hand over his chin, he shook his head and lightly spoke to Rika.

"It was probably a trap meant to capture any surviving Jedi." Rika slowly nodded and looked at the image on the holo table. As she watched the billowing smoke, she knew that there was no way that any of the Jedi inside could have survived. She was foolish to think that some might have somehow escaped the attack and were setting up a resistance cell to show the truth behind the Emperor's actions. Thinking about it now, she couldn't see how she had actually come to believe that. But, she admitted it was simply easier for her to believe that there were still Jedi out there that had survived than admitting that they were all killed. She took in a deep breath and slowly let it out, though the quick erratic spasms of a sob revealed her true thoughts.

"There's no other Jedi left," she said softly to herself. Randal frowned as he watched the level of emotion that was passing through the young Twi'lek. It seemed as if she were giving up on living, like a wilting leaf that had fallen from a tree. Rika seemed to slump over in her chair, her lekku drooping down to the deck, and even her soft blue color seemed to fade to a sickly pale hue. Randal again looked at the image of the Temple and shook his head.

"No, there's at least one left out there. Someone had to change the message." Rika lightly looked up, and a sudden glimpse of hope sparked in her eyes. Yes of course! The Temple transponder code could only be changed by a Jedi. At least one more Jedi still existed in the galaxy. Rika lightly nodded and took in another deep breath, this one void of the spasms of a sob.

"How long until we reach Coruscant?" she asked in a hoarse voice. Randal cocked an eyebrow and pointed towards the beacon that was still clutched in her hand.

"You still want to go to Coruscant? I thought that order said to stay as far away as possible?"

"I have to see it for myself. If there's at least one other Jedi out there, I have to find them," Rika said as she wiped her eyes with the palm of her hand. Randal frowned again and voiced his opinion.

"It's likely to be dangerous there. It's not like they're going to leave the Temple unguarded. You'd be walking straight into the rancor's den." Rika's mood instantly changed, and she fixed Randal with an infuriated glare.

"I'm perfectly aware of the dangers of my situation, thank you very much. And I'm more than capable of taking care of myself. Just because you might be used to seeing Twi'leks in roles of servitude doesn't mean that I'm not able to think for myself." Randal instantly stood from his seat and showed both of his hands in a sign of peace.

"Whoa, settle down, Sweetheart. I didn't mean any offense by it. All I was saying is that Coruscant might not be the smartest place to go right now, but if that's where you want to go then fine by me."

Rika continued to glare at the infuriating spacer and had to look away and take a few calming breaths before she spoke again.

"So how long until we get there?" Randal shrugged and looked down at Geefive, who was slowly backing away in reverse from Rika. Geefive twittered a response and then Randal answered Rika.

"Well, there's not a direct path from Nar Shaddaa that's not heavily watched by any officials, so Geefive's routed us around a few of the known checkpoints to avoid them. We're going to have to drop out of hyperspace a few times and change course. His estimates are about 72 hours before we can get onto a direct hyperspace route. From there it'll be no time at all." Rika stood from her seat and nodded her head, all the while avoiding eye contact with both Randal and Geefive.

"Fine. Which of the cabins is mine?" Randal pointed to the port side cabin and leaned back on the bulkhead. Rika nodded once and entered the cabin, locking the pneumatic solenoids of the door behind her. After this, Randal pushed off from the wall and shook his head.

Geefive rotated his dome to where he could look at Randal and whistled a comment about their passenger. Randal nodded, but didn't smile at his joke.

"Yeah, she's definitely a firecracker all right," was all Randal said before he entered his own cabin and closed the door.

Geefive rolled his ocular receptor and headed back towards the cockpit. He thought it was a valid assessment of their new friend, but it didn't take an expert on organic emotions to know that both of them were troubled by the goings on in the galaxy at the moment, even if they were for different reasons. Geefive himself thought that the end of the war was a good thing; after all, people wouldn't be so easy to shoot droids now. But still, maybe there was something that his advanced and modified droid mind didn't see that Randal did. Perhaps he'd ask him about it later when he was in a more jovial mood.

In her cabin, Rika paced back and forth quickly, trying to calm herself with long deep breaths. It was unbecoming of a Jedi to get mad, and usually she was able to contain her emotions. But this spacer was pushing her limits of control, and for whatever reason it was, she didn't know. Perhaps it wasn't fully his fault, but just a combination of everything that had happened in the past day. Rika stopped her pacing and let out a long sigh before she sat down onto the bottom of the three bunks that lined the longest bulkhead of the cabin. As she sat there listening to the low thrumming of the hyperdrive, she suddenly felt more tired than she had ever felt in her entire life.

She let out a long loud yawn as she removed her jacket and placed it on a small extended table that came out of the bulkhead. She then exhaustedly pulled off both of her boots, and then fell flat onto the bed. The bed's slightly too firm padding didn't bother her in the least, and at that moment was the best thing that she had ever felt. Before she knew it, her eyes were closed and she was instantly asleep.

* * *

_Nar Shaddaa. Outer Rim_.

Zaposug stalked furiously down one of the many busy intersections of Nar Shaddaa, infuriated at himself for being duped by the nefarious Randal Sarn and his Jedi accomplice. The mere fact that he was having to go through these unsavory channels to deal with his enemy was enough to place him in a foul mood, but to compound upon this, he had to travel into the lowest sections of the Smuggler's Moon, those districts where only the most wanted and dangerous beings dared to call home. Zaposug himself had once called the place home, but that was many cycles ago, long before he earned the prestige of calling himself Zaposug. It was an affront to his pride and honor to have to resort to showing himself there once again, and to locate the one person he knew who could bring him absolution.

The lower slum districts were no where for anyone to travel unless they wanted to guarantee themselves to be pick pocketed or worse yet, killed. As Zaposug navigated through the multiple spice addicts and dead beat criminals, several eyed him with mal intent, but his three remaining thugs at his side made all but the most dedicated street slime look away. There were many bars and watering holes in the slum districts, and the most ruthless cutthroats inhabited one particular place, Kunthor's Run. It was into this particular bar that Zaposug entered.

The bar was much like any other, except there was a certain tangible level of filth that not only offended the rebreather Zaposug wore on his face that added his much needed ammonia, but also offended the eyes. On several of the tables, drunks were passed out from too many drinks or from one too many ounces of spice. Several of the more violent types eyed Zaposug when he entered, eyed over his upper city clothing, and then turned back around to their drinks. The only thing that kept thugs like these from outright attacking him for his credits was the fact that the bartender kept a Blastech Ax-108 blaster cannon concealed in the ceiling's armor plating. One false move and the bartender would hit the button to drop the cannon and level anyone inside the bar. It was the best deterrent from any would-be thieves or rustlers.

Zaposug scanned the occupants of the bar as quickly as he could, and then located the one man who could bring him justice. Sitting in one of the corners facing the door, was a Zabrak. To any who would look at him, they would see that he was no man who should be messed with. Many of his cranial horns were cracked and broken. The rest of his skull was covered in deep scars that were souvenirs from his kills. His dark gray skin had large burn scars that looked tight and shined reflecting light from the dim pods in the bar. One of his eyes had been lost in some unknown fight, and was replaced by a spherical red droid ocular receptor. He wore heavily damaged body armor that had seen much better days. He briefly looked up with his droid eye at Zaposug, then filled his glass with Johrian whiskey and took it all in one single swallow. He placed the glass back on the table and continued to look at Zaposug.

Zaposug let out a breath to calm himself and approached the ruthless man. One might have been inclined to call him a bounty hunter, but this particular Zabrak would be better off called a hunter-killer. Rarely, if ever, was he known for returning a target alive. He merely brought some form or another of a trophy from his kills and presented them to his client. It was just a man like this that Zaposug wanted to bring him justice.

"Morthiath, Zaposug has need for someone of your particular talents," Zaposug said as he stood beside the Zabrak's table.

"Not interested," Morthiath said in a gravely deep tone as he poured himself another glass full of the bluish green alcohol. Zaposug leaned a little closer, but froze in mid motion when he heard the sound of the safety being switched to off on a blaster underneath the table. Morthiath picked up his glass, and again downed it all with one swift motion. He then looked up directly at Zaposug, and eyed him with both of his eyes. Zaposug swallowed hard, and then spoke softly.

"Thirty thousand," was all Zaposug could wrench out of his tightened throat. Morthiath stared at Zaposug for an intense minute, then quickly kicked out the chair opposite from him and poured himself another drink. Zaposug let out a sigh of relief and took the offered chair. As Zaposug sat down, Morthiath brought his left hand from up under the table, and revealed that he wasn't holding a blaster at all, merely an ultra sonic lighter. Zaposug frowned to himself at being fooled by such a simple trick. The thought never crossed his mind that if Morthiath had actually drawn a blaster inside the bar, the bartender would have dropped the cannon from the ceiling.

"You have my attention, Gand," Morthiath said. Zaposug frowned to himself at the Zabrak's usage of his race rather than his name. Normally he would have corrected the error, but he thought better of it this time.

"There's a spacer, smuggler type who Zaposug wants hunted. He cheated in a game of-" Morthiath cut him off with a wave of his hand.

"I don't care what reason you want him dead, only the facts to track him by."

"Fair enough. His name is Randal Sarn. Here's a holo-image of him," Zaposug then handed Morthiath a small holo pad with a picture of Randal Sarn at a Darnek table. "He flies a ship called the _Destrier_, a Corellian YT-2400 freighter."

"I know of him," was all Morthiath would say as he poured another glass of whiskey. Zaposug nodded, and then continued on.

"There's also a second target, a Twi'lek female he travels with." Zaposug leaned in closer and spoke the next part only loud enough for Morthiath to hear. "She's a Jedi." Morthiath paused in mid motion to bring the glass up to his mouth. A Jedi? Now this job was truly becoming interesting.

"So, you want a spacer and a Jedi dead? Not an easy task."

"That is why Zaposug is paying thirty thousand," the Gand said as he opened both palms upwards in a sign of understanding.

"Sixty thousand," Morthiath said as he finished the last glass of whiskey.

"Sixty!?! Zaposug said nothing of the sort!"

"It'll be sixty if you want both of them. The Hutts are offering forty for any Jedi, but since you want this one dead, I'm willing to take the loss. And besides, if you want them dead so bad to come to me, your honor must be on the line. It doesn't really matter to me, though, the reason why. All I care about is if the credits are in it. So are we in agreement?"

Zaposug thought about it for a moment. It was true that the Hutts were offering a considerable bounty for Jedi, and he knew that Morthiath would have to take a considerable loss to not bring one in alive. But still, it would be easier to just kill the Jedi than try to bring her in alive. Zaposug let out a sigh, and nodded his head.

"A deal then," Zaposug said. Morthiath nodded, and stood from the table.

"Wire half of it into my account now, and when I bring proof of their deaths you can pay me the rest. How long ago did they depart?"

Zaposug stood from the table and was speechless for a moment at the sheer size of Morthiath. When he returned from his thoughts, he answered the question.

"They left Nar Shaddaa less than an hour ago, but where they were heading to I have no idea. Doubtless you can find out by asking around at his usual hang outs in the upper city." Morthiath cracked his neck and shook his head no.

"No. If he travels with a Jedi, then she hired him for his ship. And there's only one place a Jedi would need to travel to at times like this. Coruscant."

* * *

Morthiath fired up the engines to his ship the _Black Death_, a KDY Interceptor Patrolship, and lifted off of the docking bay. As the triangular hulled ship, which resembled a much smaller version of a star destroyer, left the atmosphere of Nar Shaddaa, Morthiath contemplated what he was about to undertake.

The hunting of a smuggler was nothing new to him. He had hunted down several before, and the only trick to catching them was knowing that they could be full of different innovative actions that could slow down the inevitable end. But the hunting of a Jedi was new.

He had, much like anyone else in his line of work, heard about the craftiness of the Jedi and their supernatural powers that they called the Force. Stories had been told by other hunters of how the Jedi could sense them coming, could deflect blaster bolts from midair, and could even hurl objects at their attackers. Morthiath had always wanted to hunt a Jedi, and now that the opportunity was before him, he was slightly apprehensive about it. The Jedi were now nothing more than an endangered species, the last few remnants teetering on the verge of death. But Morthiath knew that this was when they were at their most dangerous. Any time an animal knew that their death was imminent, and they were cornered, they often lashed out with a ferocity that could easily spell death for the hunter. Morthiath would have to be cautious with this one, and the thrill of having to hunt something so dangerous made him grimace in delight as his ship entered hyperspace.

* * *

At first, the question of where she was didn't come to her mind. Rika simply walked forward, though her boots made no sound when they touched the ground. It was this lack of sound that first made her notice her surroundings, or the lack there of. She turned her head to look around, but for some reason, she found her motions to be slow, as if the air was too thick. She was surrounded by a pale white fog, so dense that it hid her own feet from her eyes. Her breathing in the dense air was normal, even though the sound was incredibly loud, as if it were amplified. As she continued, she suddenly began to feel the grip of cold doubt and confusion descend upon her.

A shiver ran up her spine, and suddenly she was enveloped in a bone shaking sense of fear. Then she heard it. At first the sound was only barely audible, but it continued to grow until it was a crashing crescendo. It was the sound of a safety being deactivated on a blaster rifle, repeated a thousand times, coming from all around her. She turned to try to face her invisible attackers, but she was only greeted by more of the bone-chilling clicks.

She spun around, trying to place their origin, and a gut-wrenching wave of vertigo crashed over her. As the eerie sounds filled her ears, they were soon replaced by the high pitched bone-chilling screech of a ship about to crash at break neck speeds. Just when she felt as if she would pass out due to high levels of vertigo and confusion, an object appeared in the haze and the constant, overpowering sound immediately ceased. Rika opened her eyes wide in both recognition and fear as she stared at the object she knew all too well; the crashed smoking remains of a Republic gunship.

Slowly, and without actually taking a step towards it, she moved forward as if she were gliding on air. The closer she got, the more her stomach turned in abject fear. She could now hear the metal ticking sound as it cooled, could smell the acrid ozone of burnt electronics, and could feel the heat radiating from the destroyed engines.

Her breathing was now very sharp and shallow, her body quivering in chilling terror. Even though she didn't want to, she couldn't stop from bending down and looking into the destroyed remains of the gunship. The interior was completely dark, but she could sense that something was inside. Abruptly a hand of rotting burnt flesh shot out towards her and she let out an abject scream of horror.

Rika instantly jumped up into a sitting position, panting and covered in a layer of cold sweat. At first she thought she was still in the fog covered plane, but a quick glance around the cabin told her that she was back on the _Destrier_. Rika took in a long quivering breath, and let it out slowly as she ran her trembling hands over her forehead. It had only been a nightmare, but it felt so _real_, so vivid, like no other nightmare that she had ever had before.

She continued to sit up in bed for several minutes, calmly collecting and trying to reassure herself through the Force, though it didn't seem to be helping. She then got out of bed, unlocked the pneumatic solenoid door lock and stepped out into the main cabin of the ship. The lights were now dimmed and the other door that led to Randal's cabin was now closed. Rika stepped across the portion of the round main corridor that was in the center of the ship, and entered the refresher. The light turned on automatically, revealing Rika's own fair toned face in the mirror, though she had circles under her eyes and her color seemed to be paler than it usually was. Rika turned the faucet on and let the cool, slightly metallic smelling water pour into her cupped hands and splashed it on her face. The sudden jolt of cold made her take in a quick breath and she turned the faucet off. She looked up at her own reflection and watched the water drip off her face. Even though it had been a nightmare, it seemed so real, so unimaginably terrible that she doubted if she would be able to get back to sleep.

After splashing her face one more time, she dried off on one of the questionably clean towels and went back to her cabin, where she stared at the underside of the middle bunk until her eyes closed again.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6 What the Future Holds

_Acclamator II-Class Assault Ship_, Rapture. _Outlying edge of the Alderaan System_.

Captain Homanlif of the newly formed Imperial Navy paced along the walkway of the bridge, all the while not looking down at the uniformed Navy officers who ran their station control centers. Homanlif sighed to himself as he remembered that once the Acclamator-Class was at the forefront of military technology, a true front line ship. When her design was first introduced, her control stations were all manned by fully trained clone troopers. The large triangular hulls were often the last thing seen by any Separatist forces before they were wiped out by the legions of clone troopers that would pour out once the mighty titans landed. But of course, that was at the beginning of the terrible conflict that had left so many worlds devastated throughout the galaxy. Now, only a few years after their introduction, the Acclamator-Class was nothing more than yesterday's news. The _Rapture_ was outdated, pure and simple. Her days of leading assaults onto enemy planets were long behind her. If the word came down to Homanlif that she was to be struck from the Imperial Registration List and decommissioned, he wouldn't be the least bit surprised.

As Captain Homanlif turned and looked over the bare crew that now ran the control stations, he felt much like his ship. Homanlif had enough experience under his belt to be given command of any Imperial ship that the fleet had, but due to his "performance" at the First Battle of D'onva, he was looked over and relegated this old bucket of bolts. Homanlif turned around from his crew to hide a sneer of disgust at some of the higher ups in the Navy, especially Admiral Phel.

The First Battle of D'onva happened nearly a year ago, and it was one that Homanlif would not soon forget. At that time, he was in command of a Venator-Class Star destroyer called _Avenger_. When his vessel arrived, three Trade Federation Lucrehulk-Class battleships instantly attacked him. Though he was outnumbered and outgunned, he was able to destroy one of the ships and disable another before his ship took critical levels of damage. The majority of his crew was able to evacuate, but the _Avenger_ was lost. Admiral Phel was leading the task force that had attacked D'onva, but the attacked failed miserably. Phel blamed the loss on Homanlif's actions and the loss of the _Avenger_. For that reason, Admiral Phel had kept Homanlif out of command of any front line vessel, and instead, he was sent to the rear commanding this outdated ship.

True, when the _Rapture_ had come under his command, it was in a sorry state, but he had his crew bring her up to a level that was well beyond the standard when she was new. In this Homanlif took pride, but even so, he would still rather be in command of a Venator, a Victory, or even one of the new Imperator-Class ships that were now entering service. To put it simply, his being in command of an Acclamator was a waste of his talents which both he and the newly formed Empire suffered for.

And now that the former battle fleets of the Republic Navy were being reorganized into the great Imperial Navy, Homanlif was uncertain of where the _Rapture_ would fit in, or if it would even remain on active duty, and to a lesser degree, he wondered where he would fit as well. Though the New Order was only days old and little was known about what sort of changes were going to take place, a few orders had come through. The only one that had any effect on the _Rapture_ was the new standardized hull markings of the Imperial Fleet; or more appropriately, the lack there of. During the Wars, each battle fleet had its own markings; the most famous of those was the Open Circle fleet. Ships would bear the markings of their fleets proudly on their hulls, and many of the ships bore the red stripes of the Republic. But now under the new Imperial Naval Doctrine, Code 421, all ships of the Imperial Navy were to only be Imperial White, showing the great power and uniformity of the Imperial regime. Homanlif personally felt that it took pride away from the individual ships, but he followed his orders without protest, and within two hours of receiving the order his maintenance droids had removed the markings and left the _Rapture_'s hull a plain and compliant white.

Captain Homanlif let out a sigh as he watched one of the holographic screens that showed what was happening outside of his ship. Now that the war was over, the front line ships were being used to hunt down any Separatist forces that might still be out there. But the lowly Acclamator-Class ships had no such glamorous mission. Instead, they were sent to patrol trade routes that came into the Core; routing out any smugglers and black market privateers that might be trying to make a quick credit in the post-war economic vacuum. What Homanlif looked out to now was just such a lead.

The _Rapture_ had intercepted a large cargo freighter trying to enter the Alderaan system undetected by coming out of warp on the very fringe of the system. By doing this, the freighter expected to travel at subspace speeds into the interior, avoiding any Imperial watching eyes. But Homanlif was far smarter than this age-old smuggling tactic, and had lain in wait for just such a vessel. Now that one was located, he had a full team of the newly renamed stormtroopers aboard the ship, searching the vessel for the contraband that they wished to sell. Their guilt in this crime was evident by the way the smugglers fought back, hopelessly of course, when the stormtroopers came aboard. Now all that was left was finding which contraband substance the smugglers were hiding.

As Homanlif watched the holographic screen, a young junior officer bearing the insignia for communications came up and gave him a crisp fresh-out-of-the-Academy salute. Homanlif didn't return the gesture, but merely looked at the young man and waited for his report.

"Sir, Admiral Madoon is waiting to speak with you." Homanlif nodded, and then began to walk with a determined speed to his private conference room.

"I'll take it in private, Lieutenant," was all he said as the doors to his conference room opened. As Homanlif walked to his desk, he began to wonder why the Admiral would be contacting him. It was true that the two did go back a ways. Before the start of the Clone Wars, Madoon had been a Captain of a Republic Corvette, and Homanlif had been his Executive Officer. In fact, if it wasn't for the support of Madoon, Homanlif might not even have the command of the _Rapture_. But Madoon wasn't the commanding Admiral of Homanlif's fleet; that "honor" was Homanlif's bitter enemy Phel. So why was Madoon contacting Homanlif now?

"Sir!" Captain Homanlif said as he saluted the miniaturized hologram of the Admiral.

"Captain Homanlif," Admiral Madoon said as he nodded back. "How are things in the Alderaan system?" Homanlif nodded, and thought that it was a strange question for him to ask. He could have simply asked the commanding Admiral of this fleet for such news.

"There have been a few incidents of smuggling, sir, but nothing that I wasn't able to handle." Admiral Madoon smiled and nodded his head.

"I'm quite sure of it, Captain." The Admiral's smile disappeared and his face took on a more serious tone. "I've contacted you, Captain, because I need a man of your talents and expertise. Soon, you will be contacted by Admiral Phel, and ordered to escort Senator Organa to Coruscant. You are to do this." Homanlif nodded, but he did not understand why the Admiral was telling him this.

"I don't see why you need a man like me to do this, sir," Homanlif stated plainly. Admiral Madoon smiled at Homanlif's directness.

"I have reason to believe that Senator Organa is secretly conspiring against the Empire. Recently, he has made several unscheduled trips in his personal ship across the galaxy. I need you to keep an eye on him for any suspicious activity." Homanlif thought about what the Admiral said and cocked an eyebrow in question.

"Is Senator Organa under investigation by the ISB?"

"No," Madoon shook his head, "not yet. So far there is a lack of evidence against him. The only official blemish on his record is his name on the Petition of 2000, but he removed it once the New Order was established. However, if significant evidence could be found linking him to a conspiracy, then it would benefit the one who found the information. Even, say, give him command of a new Imperator-Class Star destroyer." Homanlif smiled at the Admiral's choice words. They worked.

"I'll keep a close watch on the Senator, sir. If he so much as twitches the wrong way, I'll see it."

"Good. Now remember, this is just between you and me. Send any information you find straight away."

"Yes sir!" Captain Homanlif said as he saluted. The Admiral nodded back in return, and then the hologram disappeared. Homanlif sat down in his chair and idly ran his finger over his chin. It was a great opportunity he was giving him, and Madoon was right. The person who was able to turn in any information that could lead to the arrest of a conspirator would propel that individual to the forefront of the ranks. There could be no way that Admiral Phel could hold him back then. He smiled to himself at this, and when the comm. speaker on the conference desk blinked, he had to force the smile to go away before he activated it.

"Sir, incoming message from Admiral Phel." Homanlif acknowledged the junior officer, and then activated the holoprojector. Homanlif had to stop himself from sneering at the horrid man.

"Captain, I trust the pirate hunting is keeping you busy?" the Admiral said with a smirk. Homanlif had to steady his nerves at the infuriating Admiral who he knew was taking pleasure in insulting him to his face.

"Yes, sir," was all Homanlif could bring himself to say.

"Well, I hate to tear you away from that dreadfully amusing assignment, but I need you to escort Senator Organa to Coruscant for a mandatory Senate meeting. We've had a few idle threats from Separatist holdouts; nothing major, but we want to ere on the side of caution. I wouldn't worry about any attack, though, if I were you. If the Separatists were more convincing, we'd send a more suitable vessel." Homanlif could see the pure level of ecstasy this was bringing the Admiral. He had to clench his teeth from outright sneering at the man before he could give his response.

"We'll do our best, sir." Admiral Phel's expression changed from an ecstatic grin to a more ferocious sneer.

"It had better be. If you mess this up like you did in D'onva, I'll bust you down in rank so far you won't even be able to swab the deck of any ship in this Imperial Navy. I'll be watching you, Homanlif," the Admiral said before he switched off the holoprojection from his end. Captain Homanlif sneered widely at the now empty space where the hologram had been, and then exited the conference room.

As he walked up to the command station, he saw a stormtrooper captain speaking with his executive officer. The stormtrooper then gave a crisp salute, and made his way off of the bridge. The executive officer then turned to Homanlif and joined him at the command station.

"Captain, the boarding party's report states that no contraband was on the freighter."

"Really?" Captain Homanlif said with a raised brow. "Well their suspicious actions certainly garnered them their fates. Set a course for Alderaan; we have new orders."

* * *

_Alderaan. Galactic Core_.

Bail Prestor Organa, Prince Consort, Viceroy, and Galactic Representative of Alderaan, smiled down into the ornate crib at his infant daughter. She slept calmly and peacefully, wrapped snuggly in her silken white blanket. As he watched her sleep, he sighed and was grateful for the fact that she did not know of the turmoil that gripped the galaxy.

At this moment, Palpatine was busily changing the governing structure of nearly the entire galaxy, making any lasting remnant of the Republic only a memory. Soon, Organa doubted that the Senators would have any real power once Palpatine installed his regional governors which were supposed to help in administering his new laws and keep peace in their borders, but everyone who gave an inkling about freedom knew that they were to be only cruel task masters. Now, there was only tyranny and oppression that reigned supreme. While he and several other Senators did not agree with Palpatine's actions, they knew that it was suicide, both politically and realistically, to oppose him outright. Of course, some of the more brash Senators still openly voiced their opinions of the Emperor, namely Garm Bel Iblis of Corellia. Organa admired him for his courage, but he still thought his actions were brash and foolhardy. Even in the first few days of the New Order, Palpatine's Internal Security Bureau had arrested over a dozen Senators who were openly opposed to his regime. Organa himself would have been arrested if he had not removed his name from the Petition of 2000 and openly supported the Emperor's actions, if only to appear loyal in the least. In secret, he, along with several other Senators, were contemplating what it would take to organize a resistance to the Empire.

Of course it was easier to say than to do. The ramifications of misguided action not only spelled certain doom to themselves, but also to their people.

Bail looked up from the sleeping infant and walked over to the open balcony doors. The mountains in the distance shown a brilliant orange as the setting sun passed beneath their peaks. A sweet smelling breeze blew in from the south, filling Bail's lungs and calming his wandering mind. He knew that any form of resistance to the Empire was a deadly game, but one that was worth playing to bring freedom back to the galaxy.

But while he and many other Senators felt this way, none of them were brave or foolhardy enough to openly declare their stance. To everyone the risk was great, and none were willing to make the ultimate decision that could spell the doom to their peoples. Organa knew that no matter how great of an underground resistance force he could make on his own, it would be no match for what Palpatine had at his disposal. For any chance of a resistance to work, all of the like minded Senators had to fully support such an endeavor. But none were willing to make the commitment when what they were facing was so grand. Organa knew, as did many of the others, that to make everyone join forces and oppose the tyranny, a great defeat to the Empire had to be made. However, this was the great paradox, for the only way to get a great victory would be if everyone united, yet no one would do so unless a stunning defeat happened to Palpatine's regime. In some way, Organa knew that such a disgrace could happen, but how was a mystery that he doubted even the once grand Jedi could discern.

As he stared out at the picturesque scenery, he heard the almost inaudible hiss of the door open. He turned around and saw Captain Raymus Antilles standing in the doorway, though he didn't enter the serenely silent room. Bail nodded at the Captain, and silently made his way out of his daughter's room. Once he was in the hallway and the door was closed, Captain Antilles spoke.

"Sir, Palpatine has called an Extraordinary Session of the Senate." Bail Organa let out a sigh and shook his head. This was the second Extraordinary Session that Palpatine had called; the first was used to announce his Declaration of the New Order. Undoubtedly this one would have a less profound effect on the galaxy, but whatever the subject matter was, it annoyed Bail that the Emperor had used that power again. He wasn't sure what the senate meeting was for, but he feared that the Emperor would soon use the power to call the senate at his whim for every single little matter. If Senator Amidala were here, she would vehemently appose Palpatine's abuse of this power, but sadly she was not. Instead, Organa knew that he had to swallow his pride and continue to openly support anything that Palpatine proposed; even if it meant the persecution of his fellow dissident Senators.

"When is this Senate meeting supposed to take place?" Bail asked his Captain.

"Soon, sir. We should be leaving shortly." Bail nodded and began to walk beside Captain Antilles through the hallways of the castle that led towards the main Royal Hangar. As they walked, Bail made small talk with his Captain.

"Any word from our contact in the Outer Rim? I'm sure that we're going to have to organize safe transport for those that the Emperor would label as enemies."

"Very little, sir. But I'm sure that once the time comes, we'll be able to take them to safety. Our contact within the Imperial Security Bureau should be able to give us a timely head's up if they start to suspect anyone of conspiracy."

"If only they could have been quicker. I'm not sure if Fang Zar will be able to convince the authorities to let him go on house arrest. But if they do, I've arranged for him to be brought here under political asylum until we can safely get him back home. I can only hope that this madness will end soon, but I have the feeling that there is little hope in that."

The two continued to have their bleak conversation until they reached the _Tantive IV_, Bail's official Ambassador transport. Both of the men entered and went their separate ways. Antilles went to the bridge to command the flight crew, while Organa went to his private cabin to send his wife a message telling her where he was going and why.

In only a few minutes, the Corvette lifted off from the surface and began to climb quickly into the sky. As the _Tantive IV_ exited the atmosphere, a new arrival in the planet's visible range came into real space. Captain Antilles narrowed his brow as he easily recognized the triangular hull shape of an Acclamator-Class assault ship. Normally this would only raise his heartbeat by a small margin, but once his navigation officer confirmed that it was on an intercept course for their position, his heart began to pound in his chest. Even though Antilles knew that he had no reason to fear this Imperial ship, he still didn't like having to look at the menacing form of the capital ship so near his own, especially without his shields raised.

Briefly, Antilles entertained the idea of raising the shields and making a run for it, but this was only his internal soldier aspect coming to the surface. The Acclamator pulled alongside the port side and the communications console pinged with the alert of an incoming message. Antilles nodded to the young officer, and the holographic display of an Imperial Captain appeared on the deck.

"Captain," the hologram said with a quick nod, "I am Captain Homanlif of the Imperial Ship _Rapture_. May I have a word with the Senator?" Captain Antilles nodded and was about to order an officer to contact Organa, but when he turned around he saw the Senator entering the bridge. Bail Organa took Captain Antilles' place at the holopad transceiver and curtly nodded at the Imperial hologram.

"Captain, may I ask what this unexpected visit entails?"

"Certainly, sir. I have orders to escort you back to Coruscant. There have been reported threats that Separatist holdouts might try to attack Senators as they transverse through space."

"Well, I'll be glad of your company then," Bail said through his best-polished false smile. When one was a politician for as long as he had been, it was a talent that no one could see through. After both men nodded their farewells, the holopad shut down. Bail then shared a look with Captain Antilles and then made his way back to his cabin.

On the bridge of the _Rapture_, Captain Homanlif looked at the holographic representation of the Senator's Corvette and lightly smirked to himself. The Senator was good at lying, but then all politicians were. Homanlif reached his hand out and placed it around the hologram of the ship, causing the image to flicker as his fingers cut off the image from the emitters. As he watched the ship in his hand, he took in a long satisfying breath at knowing that he would soon reveal Senator Bail Organa's secret, and he would be once again on the front lines of the Imperial Navy.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7 Home Sweet Home

_Coruscant. Galactic Core._

Randal flip several toggle switches at once on a control panel to bring the sublight engines into standby mode, and then took his seat in the pilot's chair. Sitting next to him was Rika, though she wasn't looking out at the hypnotic kaleidoscope of hyperspace. The trip had taken nearly seventy-eight hours, the majority of which she spent in seclusion in her cabin trying to meditate on the Force. She was able to gain a very small fraction of her connectivity back, but it was nowhere near the level that she had once commanded. It was overly frustrating to her, and it was something that she was hoping her trip to the Temple would alleviate. She had slept little, and when she did she was visited by the nightmares of a crashed Republic gunship, an experience she was willing to lose sleep over in exchange for not having to relive again.

Randal had spent the majority of the time watching the latest news reports that he was able to download each time they came out of hyperspace for a course change, and nothing he saw about what the Emperor was doing was good. Apparently the Galactic Senate was about to vote on whether or not to increase their military funding to produce even more of their star destroyers to combat the remnants of the Separatists. Randal thought it was all bantha poodoo of course, the only reason the Emperor wanted more ships was so that he could control the galaxy with a firmer grasp. While he himself didn't care much for politics one way or the other, he knew that more ships meant more patrols, which would make his line of work that much more difficult.

Randal brushed aside these thoughts as he watched the counter on the navicomputer count down to the most minimal safe distance to come out of hyperspace. When the counter reached the single digits, he pushed the silver lever forward, and the _Destrier_ came out of hyperspace with a gentle wave of inertia. The blue crystalline tunnel rapidly disappeared and was replaced with stars. In front of them, shining from the lights of over a million different buildings was the center of the galaxy: Coruscant.

As they approached the planet, the light from Coruscant Prime ignited from behind the planet, and the terminator slowly came into view. If it weren't for the small armada of Imperial Starships that orbited the planet, the sight would have been beautiful. Instead, it was a dreadful reminder that the galaxy was now under the control of a military dictatorship.

Randal eased the throttle up a bit and began to make an approach vector, when the anticipated Traffic Control Officer's voice came over the communications speaker.

"Unidentified freighter, please identify yourself and your destination." Randal placed his finger on the communications button, but before clicking the system on, he asked Rika a question.

"What sector is the Temple in?"

"Republica," she answered. Randal lightly grimaced when she said the name of the sector. Republica was the sector where all of the Senators took up their residence, and also the sector seat for the Senate building. He doubted that they would let a random freighter with no cargo manifest land there, but it was worth a shot.

"This is the _Destrier_. Requesting landing in the Republica Sector." Randal took his finger off of the transmit button and looked out of the transparisteel cockpit. He could see an Imperial marked Corellian gunship breaking away from its intended path and making an intercept course for them. Instinctively, Randal wanted to reach for the deflector screens and power them to full, but he had to stow his usual smuggling thoughts and act like a regular citizen of the Empire.

"_Destrier_, state your business in the Republica Sector," the Traffic Control Officer said. Randal ran his tongue over his lips quickly as he tried to think of an excuse. If it didn't pass, he was sure that the gunship would try and subdue them.

"We're wanting to have a word with our representative. We don't have an appointment but we thought we could just stop by. Is that not allowed?" Randal asked as he tried to hide a smirk that was coming across his face. The excuse was a poor one, but maybe it was so ridiculous that the TCO would let them through. After a tense moment of silence, the TCO came back on and the Gunship started to go back to its original course.

"Currently no ships are allowed to land in the Republica Sector, though you have permission to land in the Collective Commerce Sector, landing platform 975. You can take an air taxi to your representative's office from there." Randal smiled widely and looked to Rika, but she didn't seem as impressed with Randal's luck.

Randal shrugged at her killjoy mentality, and then made his way to the designated landing platform. As they were about to enter the upper atmosphere, Randal saw a Corellian Corvette with the blue markings of an Ambassador, escorted by an old Acclamator-Class Assault Ship appear out of hyperspace to his starboard side. Randal idly wondered which Senator that was as the _Destrier_ started to slightly vibrate as the ship started to pass through the atmosphere.

After a few minutes, the _Destrier_ entered one of the numerous sky traffic lanes and then broke off when they reached the Collective Commerce Sector. Landing platform 975 was on one of the middle sections of the docking complex, and was simply a platform that extended out from the covered bay. There were other sets of docking bays located above and below the one that they were now setting down on. Once they were firmly landed, Randal began to go through the procedure of shutting down the engines and putting the ship into stand-by mode.

Rika was the first to exit the cockpit, soon followed by Randal and then Geefive. She didn't have any luggage or personal belongings that she didn't already have on her, so she waited for Randal to hit the button to extend the boarding ramp and open the access hatch. Once he did this, she stepped down the ramp and stood on the landing platform. Randal soon joined her there and saw that she was now looking at the Temple in the distance. Randal looked at the immense structure and felt a slight chill at the base of his spine. He had seen the building before, but had never given it as much as a fleeting glance. But now, he couldn't help but feel that the entire building just seemed dead. Randal frowned at the foreboding structure and then looked at Rika, who was still staring at the building fixatedly.

"You still wanting to go in there?" he asked. She didn't respond for a moment, and when she did, she didn't break her gaze at the structure.

"Yes, I have to know for myself how it happened." Randal solemnly nodded his head and then turned back to his ship.

"Well, good luck. You're gonna need it." Rika instantly snapped around and cocked a brow at Randal.

"You're not coming?" she asked. Randal turned back around and let out a dry laugh as he shook his head.

"Look, Sweetheart, the deal was for a free ride, not a suicide run straight into the Empire's grasp." Rika blinked rapidly at Randal's words, but she realized that he was right. She was foolish to think that this spacer would continue to aide her on her journey.

"Yes, you're right. I don't know what I was thinking," she said as she turned back to stare at the Temple. Randal took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. He could tell that she was hurt by what he said, and he admitted to himself that he could have let her down more gently. But still, the idea of entering a place that was obviously going to be heavily guarded was madness at best. Yet no matter how many times he vindicated himself in his head, he still felt bad about it.

"Look," he said as he walked back towards her, "You don't have to go there. You could simply just get back on the ship and join Geefive and me as equal partners." Rika slowly turned her head and looked at Randal. It seemed that for a brief shining moment, she was considering his offer. Before she could answer, Randal shrugged and continued to try and sell the idea. "It's not a glamorous life being a smuggler, but it has its benefits. And who knows, maybe we'll run into other Jedi out there in the Outer Rim." Rika lightly smiled, but gently shook her head.

"No; perhaps in another life or another time I would, but my destiny lies within that building. I have to go there, regardless of the danger that awaits." Randal sighed again and nodded his head. He didn't buy into the idea that there was some sort of unifying power that dictated one's destiny, but he could see that she had made up her mind.

"Well, may the Force be with you," he said, quoting the age-old farewell. Rika lightly smiled, though it looked apprehensive.

"Thank you. Farewell then, Randal Sarn." Rika paused for only a brief moment, then turned and walked away. Randal watched as she called an air taxi, and after she got in and the taxi disappeared, he shook his head and turned back to his ship. Geefive hummed an uneasy series of tones and spun his optical receiver to look at Randal. Randal shrugged, and began to walk up the entry ramp.

"I'm sure she knows what she's doing." Geefive followed Randal, and responded with another series of high-pitched hums and whistles. "Yeah, I know what I'm doing too."

* * *

As the air taxi pulled away from the landing platform, Rika briefly turned around to look back at Randal. She could see him shaking his head, and before the taxi turned around a corner, she saw him turn to go back to his ship. As she settled in her seat, she hoped that whatever path his destiny lay on was a noble one. She had thought she had seen something more to the spacer other than just the usual smuggler mentality, but she was obviously mistaken. His good deed for the year was now complete, and now he was interested in just making credits. This shouldn't have surprised her, but she still was.

She let the thoughts pass when the taxi entered one of the larger skyways and the shape of the five towers of the Jedi Temple came into view. How often in her life had she referred to the Temple as her home, but now it was only a monument to a now dead way of life.

Rika had told the taxi driver to take her to a nightclub that was only a kilometer away from Temple. Once she got there, she would make her way to the Temple on foot. But now as the Temple came closer and closer, she wondered if she had made the right decision. The only news that she knew about the attack there was through brief news feeds from the HoloNet. She had assumed that it was clone troopers, possibly the elite shock troopers, who had attacked the Temple, but there was no way for her to be positive about this.

As she thought about this mystery, her eyes fell on the cab driver, a Durosian male, and she decided on asking him if he knew what had happened there.

"Excuse me, but do you know what happened at the Jedi Temple? I've seen stories on the HoloNet, but they don't say much." The Duros driver nodded his large blue head and looked in the rearview mirror at Rika.

"Oh of course. I was very close when the assault began, and I saw much. You see, a large battalion of clone troopers, led by a man in a cloak, marched up the main stairs to the Temple and began to attack. It was really dreadful to watch. I have always heard that the Jedi were excellent fighters, but they were grossly outnumbered."

"A man in a cloak?" Rika asked as she leaned forward to listen more closely.

"Yes. I don't know who he was or what race he was for that matter, but I do think that he was a Jedi, or at least he carried the weapon of one."

"You mean a lightsaber?" Rika asked.

"Yes, that's what they're called. Well, here you are, miss. That'll be forty seven credits." Rika forced a smile and gave the Duros her last amount of credits and got out of the taxi. After the taxi pulled away and entered another skyway, Rika started to make her way towards the Temple, all the while thinking about what the Duros had told her.

So someone had led the troopers and was armed with a lightsaber. What did this mean? Surely a civilian would not lead the troopers, and all other military personnel wore uniforms. No, if the person who led the troopers was wearing a cloak and carried a lightsaber, then that meant that it was a Jedi. That thought brought a shiver down her entire spine and made her lekku twitch as if the ends were dipped into a bucket of ice water.

The possibilities of why a Jedi would do this were endless and unthinkable, but she hoped that she would have her answers soon enough.

When she reached the Temple complex, she hid behind an outlying wall and peered around the corner to survey the area. Though most people thought that there was only one main entrance into the Temple, all Jedi learned that there were in fact multiple different ways of getting in. Most of them were side entrances that were often guarded, but there were also a few entrances at the lower levels that were used to bring in daily supplies. These entrances were well hidden underneath much of the overlying structure, and would appear to be nothing more than a wall to the untrained eye. It was at one of these spots that Rika had chosen to make her entrance.

But now, as she looked around the corner at her chosen entryway, she saw that it was guarded by two stormtroopers. Though the name for them was new, she knew that they were the exact same as the clone troopers that she had served with during the War. Unlike regular people, they didn't desert their posts, nor were they easily distracted. She knew that some were susceptible to Jedi mind influence, but she was certain that the troopers stationed on Coruscant were stronger of mind than the rest. And with this train of thought, she realized that only the strongest of mind would be stationed to guard the Temple. Either she would have to figure out a way of getting around them, or find another point of entry.

But before she made her decision, she saw two civilians walking to her left, closer to the troopers than to her position. Both of these men appeared to be heavily inebriated because they were stumbling around and singing a tune well off key. She noticed that the two troopers had seen them, and in an instant she saw her opportunity.

Using what limited ability with the Force that she had at her command, she sent a wave of energy into one of the drunks, pushing him into the other one. Once this happened, the other drunk pushed back, and soon they were yelling at each other and starting to throw wild punches at each other. The two troopers then left their position flanking the entryway, and walked over to deal with the drunks. Once there was a clear shot path to the door, Rika concentrated on the Force to give her a speed boost, and she rocketed away for the door. She made it there in less than two seconds, then silently and quickly opened the door, entered, and closed it long before the troopers returned.

Now that she was inside, she took in a deep breath to calm herself, but the usual sweet smells of the Temple that she was used to were replaced by the offensive odor of carbon and death.

Quickly, she moved deeper into the loading chamber and paused when she reached the doorway that led into the main entryway of the Temple. As she looked inside, she could see the remnants of the carnage that had happened inside.

Everywhere were the charred marks left by blaster fire that either missed their marks, or were deflected away. The fountains that had flowed for a thousand generations were now silent; their water was now motionless and stagnant in the pools below. The entire building smelled of burning embers and charred flesh, and hugging the ceiling of the Great Hall was the dense haze of lingering smoke, not yet finding a way to escape.

Rika tried to steady her breathing by calling on the Force, but it was both a welcome aide and a nightmare all at once. The Temple was known for being a hotspot for the Force, and indeed Rika could feel her hold on it strengthen while being inside. But now it also brought a chilling memory of the atrocity that was committed inside these walls. Memories, feelings, and thoughts suddenly rushed through her mind as she tried to focus herself. She could feel the hundreds of younglings, all frightened at the sounds that were coming from outside the rooms in which they cowered. She could feel the determination from the few Jedi Knights and Masters who were facing off against the impossible odds that faced them. And above all, she could feel the outright anger and fury from the one who was attacking. All of these flooded her mind, creating a sensory overload that would overtake her if she lost her concentrated focus on keeping her sanity.

Knowing that she had to be quick, and knowing that as long as she was in this Temple, she couldn't call on the Force to be her aide, she decided to move ahead. The Temple itself held many different chambers, but the one she knew she had to reach was the Jedi Communications Center, which was located high in the Temple.

Quickly she darted from one pillar to the next, using the shadows for cover. Several times she had to hold in her position as patrolling troopers made their rounds. The Communications Center was located at the base of the High Council Tower, and she knew that there were only two ways of reaching it. Either she could try and continue to hide and slowly make her way up to it, or she could risk capture and use the turbolift. Normally she would have chosen to take the long and somewhat hidden path, but the overwhelming pressures from the Temple through the Force made her decide to take the quicker path.

Once she had made sure that the coast was clear, she darted forward and entered the cylindrical turbolift. She hit the floor designation button and the lift began to rise, and then looked up at the ceiling and undid the maintenance hatch. Quickly she scrambled onto the top of the lift, and crouched close to the metal plating. She looked upwards towards the top of the turbolift's shaft, and saw that the doors to her chosen floor were approaching. She pulled out her lightsaber from the jacket pocket, and quickly polished part of it to be used as a makeshift mirror.

When the lift stopped and the doors opened, she angled the polished part of her lightsaber so she could see the open doorway. She saw just what she was expecting: two stormtroopers flanking the lift's doors. The two looked in, and after looking at each other and shrugging, they turned back to their original positions.

Quickly Rika jumped down, and before the troopers could again turn to see what was making the noise, she ignited her blue blade, drove it into the mid section of one the troopers, then pulled the blade out and swung high at the other, severing his head cleanly from his body. Once the two troopers' bodies had hit the floor, and there was no sound of more troopers approaching, she disengaged the blade and replaced her lightsaber back into her jacket pocket. She then quickly dragged both of the bodies back into the open turbolift, and then began to make her way to the Communications Center.

She let herself become too cocky in her ease of not being discovered, however, and she let her guard down for a brief moment. It was during this moment that she turned a corner, and nearly ran straight into an entire patrol of troopers.

Rika instinctively tried to reach for her lightsaber, but the unit of twelve troopers instantly raised their blaster rifles. The leader of the squad, distinguishable by his color coded stripes, shook his head slowly.

"I wouldn't do that," he said with the usual accent that she now expected from all of the clones. She knew that she was now trapped and horridly outnumbered. Though she could have tried to fight them all, and go out in one last blaze of glory, she decided to live for now. She raised both of her hands high into the air, and waited for the troopers to make their move.

The Sergeant lowered his weapon and started to move forward, but the sound of someone approaching from behind them made him stop and turn around. Rika too looked to see who it was, but frowned to herself when she saw that it was another trooper. The Sergeant simply nodded to the new arrival and again turned to face Rika. Rika looked at the Sergeant, but soon she saw from the corner of her eye that the new arrival was reaching behind his back for something.

She then looked at him with her full attention, and realized that he was reaching for a plasma grenade. Before she could even register her shock at this, the trooper tossed it into the bulk of the patrol unit. The grenade exploded, taking out nearly every trooper who was standing there. Only the Sergeant and one other trooper survived, but Rika soon had her lightsaber out and cut down the Sergeant, and the trooper was shot down by the one who threw the grenade.

Rika didn't know what to make of this, but she kept her lightsaber ignited and entered a battle stance to square off against this strange trooper. The trooper seemed a little offended by this, and he reached up to remove his helmet. When he did so, Rika was both shocked and relieved to see the face of Randal Sarn.

"Randal!?! What are you doing here?" Rika asked in shock. Randal gave her his usual wide smile and shrugged his plastoid-covered shoulders.

"Well, I thought you might change your mind about being a partner. Now let's get out of here, it won't be long before other troopers come up here to investigate that explosion." Randal started to make his way back towards the turbolift, but Rika shook her head and grabbed him by the arm.

"No, the Communications Center is just up ahead. I've come this far, I might as well see it through to the end." Randal sighed, but nodded his head and began to follow her.

The Communications Center was a large room, but it was completely filled with tall towers of computer networks. The room was much cooler than the rest of the Temple, obviously an effect from the cooling devices used to keep all of the equipment in working order.

Rika walked over to one of the devices and placed her hand on it and closed her eyes. As she did this, Randal moved over to a security monitoring station and began to try and flip through the multiple cameras to see if he could find any approaching patrols. But instead, he seemed to have stumbled on an old security recording.

"I can sense something here. A presence of two Jedi Masters," Rika said as she tried to focus on what she could feel. Indeed, she could feel the echoes from two Masters who were up here recently. Obviously these must have been the ones who had changed the transceiver message. But who were they? She tried to focus more through the Force, this time not paying attention to the multitude of emotions that were swirling about the Temple, but instead tried to focus on the Jedi's identities. "I believe that they were-"

"Master Yoda and Kenobi?" Randal said as he watched the holo recording on the Security console. Rika broke away from her concentration and narrowed her brow at Randal.

"How do you know that?"

"Because I'm watching them on this recording right now. I recognize them from all those HoloNet reports about the Wars. It looks like they're watching something, but I can't make it out." Rika walked over to look at the recording and frowned at what she saw. It was both Masters Obi-Wan Kenobi and Yoda, but what made her frown was what they were looking at. Though she couldn't really make out what was happening, she could see that it was a figure wielding a lightsaber who appeared to be cutting down shorter people: younglings. She shook her head at this and then switched the recording off.

"If Master Obi-Wan and Yoda are still out there, then I have to find them, figure out what our next move is and who did this to the Temple." Randal looked at her, but shook his head.

"I thought they wanted you to go into hiding? I don't think they wanted you to search them out and try to go find the one who did all this."

"I know that's what they said, but I still have to find them, possibly learn about what really happened here. I'm sure you don't understand, but it's just something I have to do."

"I might not understand why, but if it's something you feel like you have to do, than you can count me in. That's what partners do." Rika smiled at that, but before one of them could say something, they heard the sounds of a trooper outside, obviously finding the dead patrol. "Look, we better think of a way out of here and fast," Randal said as he shouldered his blaster rifle. Rika quickly looked around and saw a pair of binders that were on Randal's utility belt. Quickly she grabbed those and handed them to Randal. For a second he only stared quizzically at her, but he soon understood what her plan was.

In the hallway, the stormtrooper bent down and looked at the charred remains of twelve of his fellow men. Obviously they were all taken out by a single blast, which must have been what he heard several minutes before. He was about to call in a reinforcement team when he saw another trooper escorting a Twi'lek female in binders. The trooper stood up from his inspection and nodded towards the prisoner.

"That the one responsible for this?" The trooper escorting the prisoner nodded, and spoke, though his voice sounded much more gravely and forced than that of the normal troopers. It was true that every clone was a separate person in their own way, but there were traits that they all did share, their voice being one of them. Of course the Wars had left some of them injured, and it wasn't uncommon to find a trooper who had a damaged larynx. It was with this method of thought that made Randal not seem suspicious to the trooper.

"Yes. I found her in the Communications Center trying to find something worth stealing. I'm taking her to the detention center for processing." Randal waited a moment to see if his impersonation of the troopers' accent had been sufficient enough to pass. The trooper then nodded, and then called in for a clean-up crew to come up to take care of the mess.

Randal quickly grabbed Rika by the arm and pushed her towards the turbolift. When the doors opened, he only briefly looked down at the two dead troopers and then pushed Rika inside. Once the doors were closed and the turbolift was on its way down to the main Temple floor, he removed his helmet and motioned down towards the two bodies.

"Your handiwork?" Rika nodded, and then Randal helped remove her binders so she could help him heft the bodies up and place them on top of the turbolift. They were able to finish this task and again put on their disguises just in time for the turbolift doors to open. When they stepped out, they met the clean-up crew as they entered the Temple and made their way up.

Calmly the two made their way out of the Temple through the main doors, and once they came to the first alleyway, they ducked inside and took in a deep breath of relief. Rika removed the binders and tossed them into a nearby trash collector. Randal did the same thing with the trooper's armor, and tossed it in there as well. Now that he was back in his normal clothes, except for his jacket, he leaned against the alley wall and shook his head in disbelief of what they had just gotten away with.

Rika ran her hands over her wrists at where the binders were, and looked at Randal with a raised brow. He saw her doing this, and asked her what was up.

"How did you get stormtrooper armor and get into the Temple?" Randal laughed and rested his head against the brick wall.

"I gave ten credits each to these two drunks and told them to walk by a couple of guards. The drunks got into a fight, and when the troopers came over, I hit them both with the full stun setting. Then I just took their armor and left the two tied up in some sort of loading dock area. How did you get in?" Rika smiled, but just shook her head.

"Sort of the same way, but not as planned out as that was." Randal nodded, and then stepped away from the wall.

"So now what do we do? You know if those Jedi stayed on Coruscant?" Randal asked. Rika thought about it for a moment and then shook her head.

"No, I think they left the planet shortly after they were in the Temple. If you were able to recognize the two from HoloNet broadcasts, then that means a lot of other people could have as well."

"Well if they left this planet they could be anywhere. Of course, leaving Coruscant then wouldn't have been an easy thing to do." Rika gave Randal a questioning look and he explained. "They were here only a few days ago, right? When we were in hyperspace I was watching reports on the HoloNet. Palpatine only recently, like a day ago or so, opened up Coruscant to civilian ships. Before that, it was on lockdown and only military and Embassy ships were able to come and go. Now unless they stowed away on a military ship, which I doubt they did, then they left on an Embassy ship. Basically, that narrows it down to any Senator in the Senate."

"Of course that would mean that the Senator had to be on good terms with the Jedi. Most would probably just turn them in for being war criminals."

"Well," Randal said, "you know of any Senators that were on good terms with the Jedi?" Rika thought about it for a moment and then nodded her head.

"I know of a few that were friendly to the Jedi, but I've only had dealings with one of them. Senator Organa of Alderaan."

"Looks like we're going to pay Organa a visit, then," Randal said as he started to walk out of the alley. Rika nodded and then fell into step besides him.

"But how are we going to find him? He's probably not even on Coruscant right now."

"Oh he is, and I know exactly where he's at right now," Randal said. He then smirked and pointed at the large domed structure of the Senate building off in the distance.


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8 Rendezvous at Noon

Morthiath sneered to himself as he peered at the Corellian freighter through his dioptric scope. He had arrived at Coruscant nearly an hour before and had found his quarry's ship easily enough, but his prey were nowhere to be seen, at least together. He had caught a glimpse of the main target, the human male Randal Sarn, as he left the ship and entered an air taxi, but the Twi'lek Jedi was not there.

He had momentarily thought about taking out the one target alone, but his years of experience told him to bide his time for a moment when both would be together. Even if the two of them were to show their faces now on the platform well below the one where he now stood, he still had to figure out the best way of taking them both out at once.

True, he could use his DC-15x sniper rifle to take out one of the targets from this range, but by the time he would be able to reacquire the other target, they would most probably be behind cover. Add to this the fact that the Jedi might even be able to know that the shot was coming and deflect it away gave enough reason for Morthiath to pursue another avenue of action.

No, Morthiath knew that he would just have to bide his time and wait for his targets to return. And when they did, he'd be ready for them.

* * *

Randal and Rika now stopped on the bustling walkway and looked up at the immense structure that was the Senate Rotunda. Along the walkway were small holopads that displayed the Senators that were debating the issue that was on the floor. Rika watched one of these for a moment and then shook her head.

"So do you have a plan for getting in there?" she asked Randal.

"No," Randal said as he watched a small van on repulsorlifts set down on a platform above him. "I usually just play it by ear." Rika raised a brow at his seemingly uncommitted tone and followed his gaze up to the van that had just set down. Emblazoned on the side of the van was the logo for Eyewitness Reporting, a HoloNet news station. Randal looked away from the van to give Rika a knowing smirk and winked before he headed off towards a staircase that would take him up to the platform. Rika had no idea what he had in mind, but she quickly ran to catch up with him.

By the time she did, Randal was already on the platform and walking up to the van, where the side door was now open and a rather rotund Rodian was busily trying to take out his holo-camera equipment. In the front seat of the van, there was a human female checking her makeup in a mirror. The Rodian looked up from his camera and looked questioningly at Randal.

"Hey, how's it going?" Randal asked as he nodded to the Rodian. He slowly nodded back and then looked between him and Rika.

"Can I help you?" he asked in Huttese.

"Oh, I was just passing by and saw you guys land. Say, is that a Sorosuub holo-camera?" The Rodian looked at Randal even more suspiciously now, and he stood from his equipment case.

"No, Sorosuub doesn't make a holo-camera. Why don't you go buzz off."

"Is there a problem, Bizo'l?" the female reporter said as she got out of the front seat.

"No Ma'am, not unless you do what I say," Randal said as he quickly pulled out his blaster pistol and held it close to his side, pointed in the two's general direction. Rika was just as shocked as they were by this, but she soon saw what he was planning on doing.

"Relax," she said as she stepped forward. "We don't want any trouble. We just want you to get into the back of the truck and stay quiet." This last part she made sure she said clearly as she waved her hand in front of their gaze. The two blinked once in unison, then spoke together.

"We'll get in the back of the truck and stay quiet." As the two climbed into the back, Randal holstered his blaster and let out a laugh at Rika.

"Those Jedi tricks sure can come in handy."

"I can't believe you have me using them for something like this now," she said as she opened the van's front door and took the reporter's press pass from the seat. As she pinned it to her jacket, Randal picked up the holo-camera and closed the doors of the van, locking the two inside.

"What can I say? I'm a shining influence on everyone around me." Rika shook her head in annoyance at his seemingly lighthearted nature at what she had done. If her Master had been there to see her using her Jedi powers like that, he would have reprimanded her for sure. But, these were desperate times, and she had to do anything in her power to make sure they accomplished their goal.

"Come on," she said. "The press entrance to the Rotunda is this way." Randal hoisted the holo-camera on his shoulder and followed her down the long and narrow walkway that led to the Rotunda. When they reached the Senate building, a bored looking guard briefly looked at Rika's press pass and then waved the two inside. When they entered the Rotunda, there was a large crowd of reporters from different stations, and different planets. One of them looked at Rika's press pass and then gave her a questioning look.

"What happened to Mina? She usually does the Senate reports for your station." Rika nodded her head and quickly thought of an excuse.

"Oh, she's covering a story about a break in at the Jedi Temple."

"A break in?" the other reporter asked.

"Yeah. Apparently someone thought it was a good idea to break in and look for something to steal," Randal said as he let out a laugh at the imaginary criminal's expense. The other reporter joined in with the laugh and then turned to speak with his camera operator.

Rika and Randal began to navigate through the waiting crowd of reporters who were all staked out in the outer walkway waiting for the Senators to exit through the doors from their meeting. There were large ornate doors at every possible position, and it would be nearly impossible to locate a particular one without some form of help. Rika knew this, so when she saw a helper droid, she approached it and asked where Senator Organa's door was.

After the droid gave them a series of complicated directions, they set off and after nearly ten minutes of navigating the immense structure, they found the door for the Alderaanian Senator.

At the door were nearly another dozen reporters, all of them fighting for the position of being the first to get to ask the Senator a question when he came out. Rika and Randal took up a position somewhat close to the door and waited for the doors to open.

Only ten minutes had passed, but it seemed like much longer before the doors finally opened. When they did, several uniformed Alderaanian guards came out and pushed the crowd of reporters back to make room for the Senator when he exited. When Bail Organa finally did walk out, the reporters pressed in and started to bombard him with questions about the Senate meeting.

Bail only answered the questions with neutral unassuming remarks, and continued to try to walk to his waiting speeder that was located in the hangar across the corridor. Rika fought to get close enough to him, and when she was, she asked a question that she knew would get his attention.

"Senator, where you able to bring up your plan for expansion on the mining project you have planned for the fourth moon of Alderaan?" Bail was about to brush away her question with another smile and a wave of his hand like he had done with the previous questions, but once he fully contemplated what she said, he paused momentarily and looked directly at Rika. When he saw her, a light of realization clicked on in his head and he smiled at her.

"Yes, and I can tell you all about it in a private interview if you would join me in my speeder." Organa then nodded to his guards, who then let Rika and Randal through and they followed the Senator to his waiting stretch speeder.

Now that they were in the private hangar bay, Organa turned to Rika and smiled widely.

"It's good to see you again, Rika Tymor. It seems that more survived the war than the Emperor expected."

"Then you know of others?" Rika said enthusiastically. Bail was about to answer, but he looked at Randal and briefly paused as if he were noticing him for the first time. Randal easily caught this, and gave Bail a smile and offered his hand.

"Randal Sarn, Captain of the _Destrier_." Bail took his hand and shook it, then raised one of his eyebrows.

"So it would be safe to say that you're a smuggler?" Randal laughed and shrugged his shoulders.

"I prefer to be called a Merchant of Opportunity," Randal said. Rika shook her head at Randal's lack of tact when speaking with a Senator, but Bail didn't seem phased at all.

"He helped me get to Coruscant, and then helped me break into the Temple to find some evidence on what happened there," Rika said, herself trying to convince Organa that Randal was on their side. However, Bail didn't seem to need convincing. For him, the mere fact that the smuggler had the trust of the Jedi was all the convincing he needed. However, he did react to Rika's mentioning of the Temple. He quickly looked around the unassuming hangar as if he were looking for a pair of unseen eyes.

"We can speak about this and more," Bail said quickly as he motioned towards the waiting speeder. Both Rika and Randal entered the rear of the enclosed speeder, followed by Bail. The driver of the speeder looked through the small window and nodded once the occupants were safely seated. Bail clicked an intercom on and told the driver to take the long route to his senate apartment. When he had turned the intercom off, he turned back around to Rika and Randal and began the conversation.

"So you were able to get into the Temple. Did you find anything there?"

"No, only shadows of the dead inside. I did learn that Masters Obi-Wan Kenobi and Yoda were inside the Temple. They changed the beacon message to a warning. I also learned that a Jedi attacked the Temple. I have no idea why a Jedi would do such a thing, so that's why I have to find either Yoda or Kenobi to learn the truth."

Bail took in a deep breath and then leaned forward in his seat. For a moment he merely ran his hands slowly together as he mulled over whether he should tell her the truth or not. On one hand, he felt that she had a right to know, but on the other, the villainous fiend who had committed those atrocities was supposed to be the Chosen One, not the one who would destroy everything they had fought for and join enemy.

"Yes, Masters Yoda and Kenobi did enter the Temple; I helped bring them from Kashyyyk and Utapau to Coruscant. When they entered the Temple, they learned who it was that led the attack."

"Who was it?" Rika asked quickly. Bail again took in a deep breath and made up his mind.

"A Sith named Darth Vader." Rika blinked several times and narrowed her brow as she took in what he had told her. Master Mindar had told her that the Council knew that Count Dooku was a Sith Lord, but they also believed that there was another, a Master that was above him. But Vader wasn't the name she had heard mentioned before; the supposed name of the Master was Sidious. Count Dooku was killed in a duel by none other than the Chosen One himself merely days before the raid on the Temple. Was it possible for the Sith Master to have found another apprentice so soon?

"How could that be? There can only be two Sith at any given time. When Dooku was killed, that only left the other one. But Vader's not a name I've heard used for the Master."

"I've never claimed to be an expert on your Jedi philosophy, but Master Yoda said that this Vader had only recently joined Sidious. Yoda also learned that the Sith Master was in fact Chancellor Palpatine, and this entire war was his grandly orchestrated plan to take over the galaxy and get rid of the Jedi. Master Yoda went to confront Palpatine, but he wasn't able to beat him. I then took Yoda to a rendezvous point to meet up with Master Kenobi, who had traveled to Mustafar to fight Vader."

"Sidious? Vader? What kind of names are those?" Randal said as he listened.

"All Sith take on a different name when they join their ranks," Rika said quickly to Randal, then motioned for Bail to continue.

"When we arrived at the rendezvous, Master Kenobi said that he had defeated Vader, but the Sith Master was still in power."

"What did they do then? Obviously there must be some sort of plan to remove the Sith Lord from power, right?" Rika asked. Bail again let out a sigh, and appeared to be looking for the best way to approach this next topic in their conversation.

"Master Yoda said that he was not strong enough to take on the Emperor by himself, and he also felt that even with Kenobi's help it might not be possible. Especially now that Palpatine would be expecting another attempt on his life. Instead, they decided to both go into exile and wait for the Force to guide them on their next move."

Rika took a moment to take in a deep breath and digest all of this new information she had received. There were still many questions that she wanted to ask, but she wasn't sure if Organa had the answers to all of them.

"I have to find them, let them know that I can help them. Where did they go?" But instead of answering, Bail shook his head and spoke calmly.

"Rika, I don't think that they wanted you to search them out. If they gave the order to go into hiding, then that's exactly what they want you to do. When the time comes that they'll fight Palpatine, I'm sure you'll know. But until that time, I think you should do just what they said."

This wasn't the first time someone had told Rika that she should do what the Masters said she should do. Randal had expressed this same thought to her before, but she said that she had to defy this to learn what had happened at the Temple. But now that she knew that truth, there was no other option for her but to do what the Masters wanted her to do and admit the one truth that she had been denying this entire time; the Jedi were no more.

"Yes, you're right. The Jedi will come back one day, but that time isn't now," Rika said softly, as if it were to herself. Bail nodded solemnly, and then sat back in his seat and looked at both Rika and Randal.

"So, what will the two of you do now?" Rika lightly shook her head at his question, but she wasn't fully paying attention to what he was saying. Randal saw this, and knew that she had to be going through something more difficult than anything that he had ever faced before.

"Well," Randal said speaking for the two of them, "we'll probably head out into the Outer Rim. That's where most of the business opportunities are at, and besides, there's less of a risk of running into any Imperial patrols out there. I don't know what their policies are on smuggling, but I'm sure they're going to be a lot worse than they were with the Republic."

Organa lightly smirked and nodded his head. "Yes, you can count on every policy being worse than they were with the Republic." The Senator made a hand motion to the driver, who nodded in return and directed the speeder to the nearest landing platform. "Well, whatever it is that you find yourself doing, I wish you the best of luck."

The speeder's door opened, and Randal and Rika stepped out. They turned once they were on the platform and nodded their farewells to the Senator.

"May the Force be with you," Organa said before he closed the door. Rika nodded and smiled lightly as she watched the speeder lift off and reenter the traffic lanes. Randal turned to Rika and motioned with his hand in the direction of the _Destrier_, which was several kilometers away.

They walked in silence for several minutes before Rika spoke. "So what awaits us in the Outer Rim, besides a life of living under the radar?" she asked solemnly.

"It's not that bad. Trust me; things are always their darkest before they get better." Rika nodded, but Randal's words of inspiration seemed to have little effect on her. Randal let out a sigh and hooked his thumbs on his gun belt. "I've got a contact on Orto that I've been meaning to call up a past due favor he owes me. He used to deal in information among other things. Who knows, maybe he might have heard something about some surviving Jedi out there." Rika raised her brow and let out a heavy breath as she nodded her head, but her demeanor seemed to be getting less solemn. As they continued to walk back towards the nearest air taxi terminal, Randal started a light conversation with Rika about their previous experiences on Coruscant. At first Rika wasn't saying much, but as her mood improved, she started to smile and share in on a few laughs.

If they had been paying attention, they would have noticed the rather suspicious individual who was watching them from the shadow of a stairwell. This individual picked up his comlink and spoke quickly into it.

"Two unknown contacts have just departed Senator Organa's speeder." The volume on the comlink was low, but the crisp accent of an Imperial Officer responded.

"_Good. Follow the two and report where they go_."


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9 Duel of Skills

As Randal and Rika approached the _Destrier_, Geefive spun his dome around and whistled a greeting to them. Geefive was negotiating with a protocol droid about the price of fuel, but when Randal arrived, he simply paid the amount that the droid was asking for and started to head up the boarding ramp. Geefive made an indignant sound from where he stood, but Randal didn't answer his question.

"Come on, Geefive. We've got somewhere to be and there're credits involved." Geefive whistled an amused response, and then when he saw Rika, he twittered another cheerful series of blips.

"It's good to see you again, Geefive," Rika said with an awkward smile. She still found it odd to be speaking to a droid as if it were a living person. Geefive was about to follow Rika up the boarding ramp, but a slight glimmer from a higher platform caught the interest of his rear ocular sensor. He then swiveled his dome around to get a better look with his primary sensor, and zoomed in on the glimmer's location.

It took a moment for the resolution to clarify, but when it did, he saw a grizzled looking Zabrak looking directly back at him with a dioptric scope. When the Zabrak saw that Geefive was looking at him, he simply lowered the scope and turned back around to his unseen ship. It took only a millisecond for Geefive's algorithms and thought matrices to process the information and conclude that this was definitely a bad sign.

Geefive then hurriedly entered the ship, bumped himself into the ramp retraction button, and then rolled towards the cockpit, the entire time emitting a buzzing alarm sound. Randal was in the cockpit and quickly turned around to see what the alarm was about. Rika too had heard Geefive's distressing sound, and had followed the little droid into the cockpit.

"What is it?" Randal asked. Geefive responded with a few quick sounds, and then activated his holoprojector. The image was small, but the hologram showed the same grizzled looking Zabrak that he had seen on the platform above him. At first, Randal only looked at the hologram with a narrowed brow. He had seen this Zabrak before, but he couldn't remember where. Then, the realization hit him like a ton of permacrete.

Quickly jumping to action, Randal swung back around to face his flight controls and started to frantically hit switches and buttons to bring the ship online. Geefive saw this and instantly took the hologram away and moved to his normal spot to interface with the ship's computers. From here, he could perform many of the tasks that Randal was trying to do manually with a much greater speed than a human, or any other alien race for that matter, could do.

But while the two seasoned spacers did this, Rika was still standing there even more confused than before. She moved to take the co-pilot's seat, and after she sat down, she shook her head and voiced her confusion.

"I still don't understand what's going on."

"Look, I'd love to explain things, but for now just strap in and shut up. It's going to be one hell of a bumpy ride!"

The three Girodyne SRB47 sublight engines came on with a quick sweeping whine, and the repulsorlifts shot the _Destrier_ straight up for ten meters. Randal quickly pushed the throttle forward, and the three ionic engines roared as the ship took off. As Randal checked the status to the landing gear (which Geefive had already retracted), he flipped on the monitor for the rear visual scope. He could see landing platform 975 shrink away, but he could also see the long triangular hull shape of a KDY Interceptor Patrolship lifting off of another platform and rocketing after him.

At first, Randal thought that he had enough distance between himself and the Interceptor, but the quick visual flare of laser cannons on the Interceptor's wings let him know that this new enemy was gaining fast.

"Geefive, angle the deflector shield! This nerf herder means business!" Geefive twittered an affirmative, and soon a quick shimmer passed over the hull of the _Destrier_. A few of the laser bolts hit the shielding and ricocheted away. Randal let out a low curse under his breath and then quickly thought of his next move. He could try and blast for space, but the strain of the gravitational pull if he went straight vertical would tax his engines heavily, which would slow him down and make him loose much of his maneuverability. This would just make him a sitting duck for the Interceptor and he would be blasted into a million particles of space dust. What he needed to do was lose the Interceptor that was tailing him.

"You strapped in?" Randal asked. But before Rika could answer, Randal rolled the _Destrier_ onto its side and entered a steep gut-wrenching dive. Rika's eyes opened wide as she watched the numerous air speeders and transports that made up the air highways flying back and forth like an intricate kinrath's web. At first she thought that Randal wasn't crazy enough to attempt to fly between these multiple lanes of traffic, but Randal did exactly that.

The _Destrier_ swerved in and out of each of the air highways, narrowly missing the speeders as they whizzed by. Several of the occupants were heavily startled by the large Corellian freighter as it zoomed past on its insanely fast dive, but they were even more distracted when the large triangular shape of the Interceptor raced by in hot pursuit, its laser cannons firing all the while.

Randal knew how close each of the air highways was getting to his ship, but he remained calm all the while. He knew that it was when a pilot became nervous and doubted his own abilities that a mistake would happen. And in this hair-raising scenario, a mistake would be fatal.

Randal pushed the throttle a bit more forward, increasing their speed to an earsplitting wail as they ripped towards the lower levels of Coruscant. Ahead and approaching fast, were two sky bridges that connected two large buildings. Randal didn't have time to consider if the bridges were still in use or not, but he did see the small gap between the two and judged that his ship would barely slip through.

With a quick blip of the rudderjet maneuvering system, he lined up the long horizontal hull shape of the _Destrier_ and threaded the two bridges with hairpin accuracy. He let a smile come across his face as he looked at the rear sensor display, but the smile instantly was replaced with a frown when he saw the Interceptor perform the same maneuver. He had hoped that the Interceptor was taller than his own ship and wouldn't make it through the bridges, but he had misjudged the other ship's size.

A warning buzzer soon sounded, and Randal looked up to see the street level of Coruscant rapidly approaching. Instinctively he pushed the control yoke forward, making the _Destrier_ nose down. When the _Destrier_ became parallel to the surface, Rika looked up and realized that they were now flying inverted to the ground. The _Destrier_ had artificial gravity systems, but the strange sense of vertigo that was now making her lekku tingle made her have to close her eyes to keep from getting sick.

Randal too was getting dizzy, so he rolled the _Destrier_ over and began to fly in a more normal manner. The _Destrier_ jarred with multiple laser impacts on the deflector shield, and when Randal checked the scope he cursed aloud that the Interceptor was still there.

"Should we fire back?" Rika asked, now recovered from her sense of vertigo.

"Getting chased like this isn't the best situation to get into a fire fight over. Besides, I'm using the full power of the generators to power the shields," Randal answered, never taking his eyes off of the narrow path between the two rows of skyscrapers.

As Randal continued to fly at breakneck speeds, the glimpse of what lay on the other side of the buildings on his left shot past. At first Randal paid it no mind, until he realized that it was the industrial district of Coruscant known as the Works. Randal waited for a larger opening in the buildings to his left, and when he found one, he quickly turned the _Destrier_ down this new path and rocketed towards the Works.

* * *

Morthiath growled to himself as he continued to match the _Destrier_ for every move it made. This Randal Sarn was talented, Morthiath would admit to that, and he was proving to be a hunt worthy of his talents. But when the _Destrier_ turned towards the Works, Morthiath knew that he couldn't keep up this pursuit without bringing serious risk to himself. The Works were filled with a multitude of different industrial products and raw materials, some of which were highly unstable if even slightly jarred. If he wanted to take these targets and still be alive to collect the remainder of his bounty, he would have to be careful.

* * *

Randal watched the rear sensor screen and saw that the Interceptor had stopped firing wildly at them. Instead, it looked as if a weapons bay was opening in the center of the triangular peak. A warning whistle from Geefive confirmed Randal's thoughts.

Randal knew that whatever sort of projectile that the Interceptor was about to throw his way would knock his shields out of commission. Randal briefly thought about powering up the gun turrets and firing at the Interceptor, but it was a little too late to begin working the other ship's shields down now. Instead, he saw another target that would prove useful: a tibanna gas cylinder.

Randal quickly brought enough power to the dorsal cannon and told Geefive to target the cylinder and to wait for his signal. He pushed the throttle to full and raced past the cylinder. He waited for the Interceptor to get near the cylinder, and then gave Geefive the order to fire. Randal watched the entire thing happen on his rear sensor monitor. The Interceptor had let loose with a concussion missile a mere fraction of a second before the laser bolt hit the cylinder. When the bolt hit the cylinder, a massive exploding fireball erupted out, hitting the Interceptor and making it spin out of control up into the air. Randal couldn't see what had happened to the missile, but since there was no impact, he figured it exploded along with the cylinder.

While the Interceptor spiraled out of control and its pilot fought to regain control, Randal angled the _Destrier_ up for its best possible escape vector and left the atmosphere of Coruscant behind it.

* * *

The tibanna gas cylinder trick had caught Morthiath by surprise, and if he hadn't had his shields up at maximum power, the explosion could have taken him and the _Black Death_ along with it. But as it was, it had only tossed the _Black Death_ like an old rag doll, sending it spiraling out of control into the upper atmosphere of Coruscant. By the time Morthiath had regained control and the ship's systems had stabilized, his quarry was long gone. However, Morthiath had no intention on continuing the perilous chase. In fact, the concussion missile that he had fired at the _Destrier_ was not loaded with a typical warhead, but was in fact loaded with a low frequency homing beacon. If the missile had survived the explosion, the beacon would have been placed on the hull of the _Destrier_.

Morthiath turned his tracking systems online, and he pulled his upper lip back in a rare smile, showing his sharp yellow teeth. On the monitor was a blinking light that was now heading away from the gravitational field of Coruscant to make the jump to hyperspace. Morthiath pushed the throttle forward, and the _Black Death_ took off at a leisurely pace to follow.

* * *

Captain Homanlif stood at full alert at the command station as he watched the multiple holo-displays, each showing a different strand of information. It had been nearly a quarter of a standard hour since an Imperial Secret Police operative had reported that two suspicious individuals had been seen exiting Senator Bail Organa's speeder. The order was given to follow the two, but as of yet there was nothing new to report.

The holo-screens were filled with random reports that the communications crew of the _Rapture_ were filtering through, looking for anything that might be a potential lead to Homanlif's unofficial assignment. As Homanlif waited for another report from the operative, he read a few of the reports that were coming across the monitors. One of them was reporting on a disturbance in a lower city diner, where apparently a disgruntled customer had hastily argued with the proprietor with a blaster in each of his six hands. Another was reporting that there was some sort of break in at the Jedi Temple, though no suspects could be located. Even another, which was the most ludicrous of all, was a report coming from a HoloNet news crew that they were robbed and made to sit inside their own van. Another of the reports came from the Coruscant Security Force that said two ships were seen engaged in a highly dangerous chase, where one of the ships was even seen firing at the other. This report was followed by a computer rendition of the two ships and the possible trajectory of each vessel.

Homanlif was about to look at another monitor and read its report, when a Junior Officer quickly walked up and cracked a salute.

"Sir, we have a report from the operative. He says the two suspects were seen entering a Corellian freighter, and then they were pursued by a Kuat Interceptor." Homanlif narrowed his brow into a V and then looked back at the monitor with the CSF report. The two computer renditions were exactly the same type of ships that the operative had reported on. Quickly Homanlif began to bark orders to locate the Corellian freighter by the calculated trajectory that was given. Within moments, one of the officers said that they had them on the scanners.

"Put them on screen five," Homanlif said as he turned to watch that particular screen. The image of a HoloNet van disappeared, and was replaced by the Corellian freighter that was now beginning to exit Coruscant's atmosphere. Homanlif let a small smirk cross his lips as he saw his way to becoming a Captain of one of the new _Imperator_ class ships right before him.

"Set up an intercept course, maximum speed. Scan the vessel completely; I want to now exactly what we have here." He was answered by several enthusiastic affirmatives and he rested easy as the _Rapture_ began to shift course. The deck below his feet started to lightly rumble, letting him know that the engines were now coming on to full power. It wouldn't be long now before they had this freighter locked in its tractor beam and safely tucked away in the _Rapture_'s one docking bay. Homanlif told himself that it would be a tight fit, but the freighter would fit.

As Homanlif watched the freighter, he began to think that they just might reach the green zone and be able to make the jump into hyperspace before the _Rapture_ could reach them. If that were to happen, he would never be able to find the ship again. It would be like looking for a womp rat in a herd of Banthas. But just when Homanlif was about to give the order to bring the reactor up to 110%, one of the crew members sitting at a console called to him.

"Sir, I've located an anomaly originating from the freighter. Specifically, on the rear of its hull." Homanlif walked over quickly and looked at the console's findings. Once he read the information, he shook his head at the inexperience of his crew.

"That's not an anomaly, it's a tracking beacon." Homanlif stood tall and thought about this for a moment. The other ship that was involved in the chase on the surface was nowhere to be seen. From Homanlif's years of experience, he knew that Corellian freighters were usually the choice for smugglers and other sorts of that ilk, and he also knew that the Kuat Interceptor was an ideal choice for a bounty hunter. Within a mere second, he was able to deduce that the Corellian freighter's pilot must have a bounty on his head, and the Interceptor's pilot must have placed a beacon on his ship to follow him. Whether this was the case or not, he could use this to his advantage. Catching rebellious agents was one thing, but for them to lead him to their operation was another.

"Lock on to that tracking beacon and plot any course it makes. Stand down from intercept course and return to normal speeds." Homanlif then returned to look at the image of the Corellian freighter as it flew along in the emptiness of space. "Well my friend," Homanlif said to himself, "it seems your luck is about to get even worse."

* * *

Randal checked his rear sensor screen for the twentieth time and was relieved for the twentieth time that the Interceptor was nowhere to be seen. He then fell back into his pilot's chair and watched the distance counter tick off rapidly the distance before they could safely enter hyperspace. Seated next to him, Rika let out a deep breath and shook her head at their lucky break.

"Now who exactly was that?" she asked. Randal raised his brow and scanned the area of space that was all around his ship.

"Judging by the ship, I'd guess it was Morthiath."

"Morthiath?" Rika asked.

"Yeah. You could call him a bounty hunter, but he's known for bringing most of his bounties in dead. I've never met the guy face to face, but I've been around enough to know that he's bad news."

"But why would a bounty hunter be after you? Some other gambling debt you owe?" Randal gave Rika a sideways look and then leaned forward in his chair to get a better look at what was directly above them.

"He's after both of us, Sweetheart. And I'll give you one guess as to who hired him."

"Zaposug," Rika said with a frown.

"That'd be my guess," Randal said before he went rigid in his seat.

"What is it?"

"_Acclamator_-Class, and it looks like its coming straight for us." Randal then took a firm hold on the control yoke and was about to prepare to turn and run, but the large Imperial ship turned away and began to slow down. Randal continued to hold the yoke for a moment before he finally relaxed.

"I don't know what that was all about. Well, it doesn't matter; get ready to make the jump." Rika nodded, and Randal pulled the hyperdrive lever backwards, and in a blinding flash of the stars, they were away.

* * *

Morthiath brought the _Black Death_ from around the cover of a large bulk freighter and hurriedly moved towards the point where the _Destrier_ entered hyperspace. The beacon was still transmitting strongly, and it wasn't long before his navicomputer was able to isolate their intended destination. As his computer plotted the same course, he noticed a large _Acclamator_-Class cruiser dumping its trash, and then entering hyperspace as well. For the briefest of moments, Morthiath entertained the idea that they were pursuing the same target, but he dismissed the idea as being ludicrous before he pulled his hyperdrive lever and entered hyperspace.


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10 Things Change

Near Orto System, Sluis Sector, Outer Rim.

Randal exited his quarters and yawned as he checked his wrist chronometer. There was still about five minutes left before they would reach Orto and the old business associate of his. Randal hadn't spoken with him in quite some time, but he remembered him being a trustworthy character, something that was rare in this line of work.

Rika exited her cabin as well, and as the two made their way to the cockpit, Randal started a conversation.

"You ever been to Orto before?"

"No. Have you?"

"Once," Randal said as he climbed into the Captain's chair. "Several years ago. There's not much there outside of the spaceports. The planet's basically one big hunk of ice, except for the equator region. Definitely not a place I'd plan on spending a vacation."

The light on the navicomputer began to blink red slowly, and started to become faster and faster. A moment before the warning klaxon began, Randal pushed the hyperdrive lever forward and the _Destrier_ exited hyperspace. In front of them materialized the large frozen green sphere that was Orto.

Randal engaged the sublight engines and began to fly towards the planet. As he did so, he watched the space traffic that was flying in and around the planet. There were mostly freighters and other such ships, but there were also several Imperial vessels as well. He took specific note of a _Venator_-Class star destroyer that was currently detaining a large super freighter in orbit of the planet itself.

"Looks a lot different than how I remember it," Randal said with a frown as they passed an Imperial ship.

He piloted the _Destrier_ to a location above the capital city, and then brought the ship to a standstill. He then turned on the communications array and tuned it to the frequency that he thought most likely that his contact would be listening to. Randal cleared his throat and spoke into the microphone.

"This is Captain Randal Sarn; I'm trying to reach Jonas Bees. Are you out there?" Randal waited for a long moment in silence, and was about to try again when he heard a slight static resonation and a voice came over the speaker.

"What business brings you here?" a voice said. Randal narrowed his brow at the sound of the voice. It was one that he hadn't heard before, but he knew that Bees had a large crew in his employ, or at least he did the last time he spoke with him.

"Like I said, I'm trying to reach Jonas Bees. We go back a long ways." There was another brief moment of silence before the same voice came back with just the simple coordinates for a docking bay. Randal shrugged his shoulders at Rika's unspoken question and pushed the throttle forward. As he brought the _Destrier_ in on an easy entry trajectory, Rika sat back in her chair and crossed her arms.

"I thought you said you knew this person. From the sound of that transmission it seems like he doesn't know you. Or maybe he does," she added with a smirk. Randal looked sideways at her and shook his head at her smart-alecky remark.

"It'll be fine, trust me."

* * *

Captain Homanlif watched the monitors as they displayed the forward view outside of the ship. The _Rapture_ had exited hyperspace only moments ago, and they were able to witness the Corellian freighter enter the frozen atmosphere of the planet. The flight crew of the ship had placed her in a stationary position several million kilometers away from the planet. Their next course of action was now up to Homanlif.

"Sir, your orders?" his executive officer asked. Homanlif didn't respond right away. He had thought about sending a strike team down and arresting the crew of the freighter straight out, but then he wouldn't learn what it was that they were sent here to accomplish. But if he were to wait until they left, he could capture them and squeeze as much information out of them as possible. He was sure that Admiral Madoon would reward him greatly for information like that.

"Maintain position. Keep all scanners locked on the freighter's position, and alert me if there is any change."

"Yes sir."

* * *

The _Black Death_ came out of hyperspace in a quick flash, and the first thing that Morthiath noticed was the number of Imperial capital ships in the area. He frowned to himself as he slowed his sublight engines and thought about what he should do next. He could continue to follow the beacon and attack Sarn and the Jedi together, but with such a large Imperial presence here, he would find it difficult to escape. Instead, Morthiath chose to go with the more logical answer, though for him it meant waiting even longer for him to catch his prey. He sneered to himself as he throttled up his engines and headed towards a debris field of space garbage where he would bide his time.

* * *

The _Destrier_ flew over the capital city at a height of roughly a hundred meters, the standard height for incoming vessels. The city, if it could really be classified as that, was mainly constructed of prefabricated buildings. All of the metallic roofs were covered in layers of snow and ice, though there was little to any wind. When compared to the other regions of Orto, this area was seemingly a tropical region, if only thought of as such by the local population.

Randal found the docking bay that they were instructed to land at, and frowned at the level of disrepair that it was in. Randal had only been here once before, and then the docking bay was clean and in peak operating condition. Compared to now, it almost looked as if it was abandoned.

Randal slowed the engines and began the landing cycle. The _Destrier_ sat down firmly on the ground, and after Randal shut down the engines, he stood from his chair and began to make his way out of the cockpit. As he passed Geefive, the droid twittered a series of electronic jargon at him and continued to spin his computer uplink module.

"All right, see if you can figure out what it is," Randal said as he nodded to the little droid and then walked out of the cockpit. Rika was close behind him, and when Randal stopped to open a small locker, she asked him a question.

"What did Geefive say?"

"He said he was getting some sort of electronic feedback from the ship. It's probably nothing; he'll have it fixed before we leave. Here, take this jacket. Orto is about as hospitable as a warm blaster muzzle." Rika took the jacket that he offered her, though the large insulated coat was far too big for her. Randal put on a thick coat as well, and then led the way to the entry ramp.

When the hatch opened, a sharp chill air slammed into them like a ton of permacrete. Rika took in a sharp breath and fought hard the urge to start shivering immediately. Randal blinked a few times at the drastic temperature difference, and then stepped out of the ship. As he walked down the ramp, he took in the sight of the docking bay. Crates covered in ice were stacked along the walls, as if they were waiting indefinitely for a transport to come and take them away. Large heaps of snow were piled everywhere, nearly or completely covering random scrap parts from ships that were haphazardly left from some sort of maintenance work that was done ages ago. When they reached the bottom of the ramp, he could see a group of eight well-armed people, nearly all of them were of different races, walking straight in their direction. Randal paused and Rika took up the same stance at his side. When the other group entered the column of light that was coming in a wide circular shape due to the tall docking bay walls, Randal could make out what races they were.

Two of them were Wookies, wearing nothing more than their heavy thick coats and their large bowcasters that they kept ready in their massive hands. Another three were human, bundled as tightly in thick fur lined coats as Randal and Rika were. The final three were all natives of this world, blue furred Ortolans. It was one of these that stood in the center of the group, and it was he that stepped forward to speak, all the while holding a blaster pistol aimed in Randal and Rika's general direction. This Ortolan had a paler blue tone to his fur, and he wore a stained black eye patch over his left eye. He also wore thick gray pants and a black vest made from a fiber weave material.

"Well, well. Randal Sarn. I haven't seen you in some time. By my recollection, not since you nearly destroyed my ship." Rika's eyes quickly darted from the Ortolan's upraised blaster to Randal, who didn't seem phased in the least that he was a mere trigger pull away from certain death.

"Hey, everyone runs into pirates from time to time. And I did get that shipment to the drop off point. From what I remember, you made quite the amount of credits off of that, plenty more than what you estimated. And, remember, I didn't ask you for any more payment than what was agreed on. If I would have known it would be that much trouble, I would have asked for triple," Randal said with his usual flare for diplomacy. One of the Wookies growled and went to raise his bowcaster, but the lead Ortolan stopped him with a sign from his free hand.

"That may be, but I still had to scrap the ship. So why are you here now? You want to collect the extra amount that you think I owe you? If you can't tell, times have been a little rough around here lately," Jonas Bees said as he motioned around the docking bay with his blaster.

"Obviously," Randal said. "But what's with the not so warm welcome? Is this how you greet all your old business acquaintances?"

"Normally, no. But the Imperials around here have been cracking down on my sort. Just because we did business a few years back doesn't mean you're not working for them now."

"Me, with the Empire? Now that's just insulting," Randal said as he shook his head and turned to head back up the ramp. Rika had been trying to remember where she had heard the name of Bees before, and as Randal walked passed her, she remembered.

"I once knew a man with the last name of Bees," Rika said. Jonas's gaze instantly fell on Rika and he sized her up with his one good eye. Randal stopped walking and turned back around to stand beside her. There was an awkward moment of silence as Jonas continued to look at her, but he finally lifted his large head and spoke calmly.

"So are you a Jedi then? Only a Jedi would have known the one called Nem Bees."

"That's right," Rika said with a nod of her head. While she was trying to stay calm and not appear nervous, the cold was getting to her and she found it impossible to stop from shivering. It was a big risk letting this Ortolan smuggler know that she was a Jedi, but she felt that he had to know that Randal wasn't an Imperial spy.

"Hah! Impossible. All of the Jedi have been wiped out. You're no more a Jedi than I am a Senator!" Rika looked at Jonas and his guards, who were all now chuckling at their leader's joke. Rika took in a deep breath and called on what abilities the Force would give her and concentrated on Jonas's blaster. In a quick instant, the blaster leapt out of his hand and landed in hers. Jonas and his guards stopped laughing instantly and they just stared at Rika.

Jonas flexed the fingers of his hand that the blaster had once been in and ran his other hand over his long nose before he spoke.

"Well, it would seem that not all of the Jedi are gone. I won't make that mistake again, for sure. Go back to your duties," he told his guards. Once they turned and started to leave, Jonas approached the two and offered his hand for Rika to shake.

"The name's Jonas Bees, and welcome to my little operation, miss?"

"Rika Tymor," she said as she shook his hand. Jonas nodded and then looked at Randal with his good eye. He smiled widely, and then gripped Randal's hand in a firm shake.

"Well now young Randal, what brings you to Orto?"

"I thought you might have a bit of work for me. After all, it's the least you can do."

"Well, perhaps I do. Come inside, we can talk business in more comfortable conditions."

Randal gave Rika a quick wink before they both followed Jonas through the disorganized hangar. He then led them to a sealed doorway that led to a stairwell, which they walked down. This then led to a long narrow corridor that had many different doors on either side, but they continued to walk past these until they reached a single doorway at the end. Randal looked up at the ceiling and saw the outline of a well-hidden security blaster panel. Jonas knocked three times and a small orb iris opened and a droid eye came out and scanned the three. It spoke rapidly in a dialect that Randal had never heard before, but Jonas simply spoke to it in basic saying that the others were with him. The droid took him at his word and then opened the door.

As the three stepped inside, Randal noticed that this interior room was one that he had been in the last time he was here. Surprisingly, this room was still much the same as it had been before, unlike the docking bay outside. Jonas led the way to a desk in a corner and offered two of the seats to Randal and Rika with a waving gesture of his hand. Jonas then went to the opposite side and flopped into the chair.

In a simple flopping maneuver, he kicked his blue feet up onto the desk and leaned back in his chair. From his reclined position, he took a bottle of Ortolan brandy off of a tray and poured some into three glasses.

Randal took the one that was offered him and took a sip of the strong purple fluid.

"So what happened to your operation here?" Randal said as he felt the alcohol swiftly warm his insides.

"The war, that's what happened. Sure, at first it was great for business. But then the Separatists invaded, followed by the counter attack by the Republic. In all the fighting, I'm surprised there's anything left of the planet. With all that fighting going on right outside, it made it difficult to get anything in or out. But, luckily the war's over, and there's credits to be made out there." Jonas smiled widely, and then took a long pull from his brandy.

Rika, who up to this point was only holding her glass, took a sip of the strong liquor and tried her best not to start coughing immediately. Jonas looked at her when she tried to stifle her cough and he examined her from the rim of his glass.

"So tell me, how does a Jedi Knight end up running with a smuggler?"

"I'm not exactly a Jedi Knight yet, I'm a Padawan," Rika forced out from her slowly recovering throat. Jonas narrowed his blue brow and lightly shook his head, making his large floppy ears flap back and forth.

"A Padawan something like an apprentice?" Jonas asked. Rika tried to blink the insipient burn from the brandy away and nodded her head.

"Yes. I managed to escape from the soldiers and made it to Nar Shaddaa. There I met Randal for the first time and he helped me get off of that moon. Randal offered to make me a partner in his business and I had nothing else to do so I accepted."

"You make it sound like you'd rather be doing something else," Randal said with a mocking voice that sounded like he was hurt. She first made to apologize, but when she saw that he was smirking, she rolled her eyes and took another sip from the burning liquor.

"So what sort of work do you have for me?" Randal asked. Jonas nodded, and finished up what was left in his glass. As he refilled it, he spoke.

"The D'onva system is hurting in a bad way. They're still recovering from the war themselves, and can't get enough shipments in without having to pay the Imperial tariffs. Now, I just so happen to have several containers of the supplies that they're needing, but I'd need someone experienced enough to take them there."

"How much we talking here?" Randal asked as he placed his empty glass down.

"Twenty five percent of the profits," Bees said.

"No way, I'm not falling for that again. I know there's going to be Imperial patrols or something in that area, I want half."

"Half?!? You might want to have your head examined, Sarn. There's no one that would hire a pilot for half. I can go as high as thirty percent."

"Forty and we have a deal," Randal said with a calm straight face. Jonas looked at him and sighed.

"All right, I'll go for thirty five, but that's my final offer." Randal smirked and nodded his head.

"All right, we have ourselves a deal."

"Good," Jonas said as he poured more brandy into their glasses. "Any more negotiating and I would have regretted not shooting you in the docking bay."

* * *

After Jonas's crew was finished putting the containers into the cargo holds, and after saying farewell to Jonas, Randal and Rika were about to board the ship when Geefive called to them from on top of the engine deck. Randal stepped away from the _Destrier_ and shielded his eyes from the intense blue light from Orto's blue dwarf sun.

"What is it? You find out what was making that interference?" Geefive twittered an agitated response back, and then he extended his thruster jets from his leg modules and lifted off of the engine deck. When he was firmly back on the ground, his jets retracted and he rolled over to Randal holding something round and charred in his gripping arm. Randal took the strange object from Geefive and turned it over in his hands. Randal didn't need an expert's opinion to know what it was.

"Was that the thing making the interference? What is it?" Rika asked as she looked at the object in Randal's hands.

"It's a homing beacon. That bastard Morthiath must have launched it in a concussion missile back on Coruscant. How long were we here before you fried it?" he asked Geefive. Geefive beeped a response and then Randal nodded, all the while keeping a look of irritation on his face. After turning the beacon over in his hands a few times, he handed it to Rika and began to enter his ship.

"Come on, let's get a move on." Rika and Geefive followed right behind him, and when they were inside, Rika caught up with Randal in the access way to the cockpit.

"How long was it on the hull before Geefive found this?" Rika asked.

"Long enough that Morthiath knows we're here. He's probably hanging around in orbit waiting for us to show our faces again. If we're lucky, he hasn't realized that we know about the beacon yet. That just might buy us enough time to slip past him and get back into hyperspace. From there he won't ever find us again."

"Unless he's lucky," Rika said as she sat down in the co-pilot's chair.

"Well if he's lucky," Randal said as he started up the engines, "then this will be a really short trip."

As the engines came online and Randal made sure the other ship functions were operating at full capacity, Rika made herself comfortable in her chair and thought about their meeting with Jonas.

"How long have you known Jonas?" Rika asked Randal. Randal shrugged as he flipped a few of the ship's switches.

"I've known him for about five years. Haven't done any business with him since before the war, though. Why, you got some sort of Jedi feelings about him?"

"No, nothing like that. He just seems sort of, well, I can't think of the word right now…"

"Shady?"

"I guess."

"Look, almost every person out there that makes their living in space could be described as shady. I've been called that plenty of times and look at me. I'm the spitting image of honorability," he said with a smile. Rika rolled her eyes and shook her head at his expense.

"Whatever you say, now let's get underway, flyboy." Randal looked at Rika sideways and grinned to himself at her slowly changing demeanor.

With the engines whining up to full power and the repulsorlifts coming online, the _Destrier_ lifted off and rose high enough to pass out of the bay. The engines roared to life, and the _Destrier_ took off towards the sky above.


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter 11 Belly of the Beast

_Orto System,_ _Sluis Sector, Outer Rim._

Captain Homanlif stood at the main tactical holoprojector and watched the hologram of the frigid world below rotate. At certain points, the hologram pointed out points of tactical interest, though there were too few to be of any importance. He keyed in a command for the projector to zoom in on the area that they had lost contact with the mysterious freighter. The area of the capital city didn't look any different from the rest of the dreary capital. Homanlif knew that either the crew of the freighter had discovered the tracking beacon, or the ship had passed through a jamming field. Either way, they had lost direct contact with the ship. He had his entire scanning crew constantly monitoring all outgoing vessels in the event that the ship tried to leave, but in the mean time, Homanlif was wondering just what it was with this planet that would be of interest to insurgents.

Orto itself held no strategic value, nor did it have any major source of income for traders. In fact, the only thing the planet was known for was its indigenous species, the Ortolans. They themselves were known for often becoming musicians that were sought after for their talents.

To make it even more puzzling was the fact that Orto was heavily garrisoned by the Empire. Insurgent forces would be insane to think that they could have a major base of operations right under the Empire's nose. If someone believed that were possible, they probably also believed that the Separatist movement was orchestrated from Coruscant.

"Sir!" one of the junior officers said as he stood from his monitoring station. "We have them!" Homanlif nodded and walked towards the main projector and nodded to the young officer to bring the image onto the screen. When the image appeared, Homanlif smiled to himself. He had them!

"Lock on to their position and set an intercept course. As soon as they are in tractor beam range, get them. Now we'll learn just what they were doing here," Homanlif said as he continued to watch the holo-image of the Corellian freighter leaving the planet's atmosphere.

* * *

Morthiath flipped his transceiver's signal modulator for the hundredth time and cursed aloud at loosing his prey. How did they find the beacon? Surely his prey was not that lucky? With an angry snap, Morthiath turned off his transceiver and tapped his trigger finger on the armrest of his chair as he thought.

It was impossible for his prey to have discovered the beacon, conducted their business, and already be away from this system through hyperspace. He knew that they must still be in the general area, so he turned on his scanners and started to look for the Corellian freighter. It wasn't long until he found the particular ship he was looking for, mainly because Orto had so little traffic to begin with.

Morthiath fired up his engines and pushed the throttle forward. Before, he was leery of attacking his prey in plain sight of the Imperials, but now he had little choice. If the freighter was able to escape again, his chances of locating them in the galaxy were nil. The _Black Death_ roared to life as he quickly exited the field of space debris and headed towards his enemy ship.

* * *

The _Destrier_ passed through the last portion of Orto's atmosphere and entered the pure black of space. Randal was leaning back in his pilot's chair, keying in the destination for the navicomputer. As he was doing this, Rika was keeping herself occupied by looking at the different ships that were still orbiting Orto. The large _Venator_ star destroyer was still there, but the large bulk freighter that it had detained earlier was now gone.

Rika moved her gaze along until she came to rest on the triangular shape of an _Acclamator_ assault ship. For a moment she started to remember fighting alongside clone troopers as those ships descended from above, but instantly those old thoughts were replaced by a more alarming one.

"Randal, do you remember an _Acclamator_ ship in orbit when we arrived?"

"No," Randal said as he shook his head as he continued to look at the navicomputer readout. "That was back on Coruscant. Why?" When he finally looked up, he saw the large triangular assault ship heading directly towards them.

Randal cursed to himself and jumped up in his seat. Though the _Acclamator_ ships, and all government ships for that matter, shared the exact same paint scheme, he knew that this was the same ship they saw on Coruscant.

"What do we do now?" Rika asked, obviously coming to the same conclusion that Randal did.

"Well, we could either cut and run and obviously look suspicious, or just keep cruising along. It may be nothing…" But just as Randal was going to finish his sentence, the _Destrier_ jarred violently as she was ensnared in the capital ship's tractor beam.

"Fierfek!" Randal yelled as he pushed the throttle to full. Though the engines roared to life, the _Destrier_ only continued to shake violently in her spot. Randal flipped a few switches and moved a few levers, but nothing seemed to be helping his ship. With the engines struggling against the heavy strain, warning klaxons began to sound. Randal let out a loud explicative and shut down the engines.

As the _Destrier_ was slowly brought towards the main and only hangar bay of the larger ship, both Randal and Rika sat in utter silence. Rika shook her head in frustration, and then broke the silence that reigned within the durasteel walls.

"So what's the plan?"

"Plan? What plan?" Randal said as he folded his arms angrily. Rika sighed, and then looked around the cockpit for something to give her an idea.

"We can't just give up that easily. We have to think of something, now come on!"

"They've got us fully locked in with their tractor beam. Even if I pushed out every bit of juice the _Destrier_'s got, we'd still be stuck here. I'm sorry, Sweetheart, but they've got us." Rika's gaze fell on Randal and she gave him a stern look.

"What sort of talk is that? One little snag and you're ready to just give up? I thought the Great Randal Sarn had hundreds of tricks up his sleeve to outsmart the Empire. Well, if you do, now would be the time for it!"

"Look, no one likes to go in guns blazing more than this guy, but one blaster and a lightsaber up against an entire ship's worth of fully armored clones ain't my kind of odds; it's more like suicide."

"Well there has to be _something_ we can do besides sit here and argue."

Randal sighed but didn't continue to argue with her. For a moment, he just sat there, but he then stood up from his chair and started to head out of the cockpit. As he walked away, Rika shook her head at his stubborn nature and was about to lean back in her chair when Randal stuck his head back inside the cockpit.

"Well, you coming Sweetheart, or am I taking on the Empire by myself?" Rika jumped up from her seat and followed Randal into the main lounge area. Randal leaned against the holotable and ran his hand over his mouth before he spoke.

"All right. They're going to take us and probably put us in the brig. Hopefully the design of those things hasn't changed since the last time I was in one." Rika raised an eyebrow at him, but he shook the question off and continued. "You should be able to activate the controls with the Force and lower the energy shield to get us out. Then we can get our weapons back." At this point, he looked at Rika and lightly shrugged his shoulders.

"For this to work, you're going to have to give me your lightsaber."

"Why?" she asked as she reached for the weapon in her jacket pocket.

"Because that weapon is a dead give away that you're a Jedi. Don't worry; I've got several smuggling compartments in this ship that we can hide it in. Everything short of a scanning team won't be able to find it." Rika reluctantly nodded and handed the weapon over to Randal. Randal then walked over to the nearest bulkhead and hit a seemingly indiscernible section of the wall. A small compartment opened up, and he placed the cylindrical weapon inside. When the compartment door was closed, it blended in with the bulkhead perfectly. Randal then opened a regular locker and retrieved a blaster in a holster belt and handed it to Rika. She placed the belt around her waste and tightened the belt, though it still hung loosely on her slender frame.

"Okay. Now that gets us out of the brig, but the hardest part will be getting back to the ship."

"What about the tractor beam?" Rika asked. Geefive then beeped his input into the conversation.

"Don't worry about that, Geefive will take care of it. Once we get back into the _Destrier_, we're going to have to make a mad dash for hyperspace. Hopefully they don't blow us into smithereens by then." Rika nodded, but caught a major flaw in Randal's last minute plan.

"But wait, Republic procedure was to place a restraining bolt on droids whenever a hostile was encountered. I'm sure the Empire uses the same procedures." Geefive twittered a sarcastic sounding tone, and Randal smirked widely.

"Well, a restraining bolt effects a regular droid's internal routing system. But let's just say that Geefive isn't your normal droid. Come on; let's get ready to greet our new hosts."

* * *

Morthiath was about to bring his weapon systems online when he saw the _Destrier_ get snagged by an _Acclamator_'s tractor beam. Morthiath let out a curse in his native Zabrak at his misfortune with this particular hunt. So far, this hunt had caused him nothing but trouble. First, his targets were never together, and then when they were, the piloting skills of Randal Sarn had kept Morthiath from getting his kill. Then, when he thought he had the upper hand by getting a tracking beacon on Sarn's ship, he looses track of him on an Imperial controlled planet. Now, when he thought he finally had him where he wanted him, the bastards go and get captured by an Imperial ship! Now there was no telling where his targets would go!

Morthiath briefly thought about simply abandoning this hunt, but his sense of honor only made this option seem viable for a fraction of a second. Instead, he knew that he had to somehow follow this Imperial ship to wherever it took his targets. From there, he could continue his hunt and possibly strike when the opportunity presented itself.

The _Black Death_ was a highly modified ship, and one of its many features was a top of the line signal jammer. Morthiath engaged this as he casually brought his ship along side of the large _Acclamator_, and then maneuvered his ship to be only a meter off of the hull above the engine. With the flick of a few switches, his magnetic grappling hook engaged, and he was anchored to the hull of the large Imperial ship. Morthiath disengaged the engines and shut down the primary power to hide his energy signature. The only things he kept up and running were his life support systems and his signal jammer. Once the sounds of the _Black Death_ passed away, Morthiath settled in his chair and again played the waiting game.

* * *

As Randal and Rika got ready to assume non-threatening positions near the landing ramp, the _Destrier_ entered the _Acclamator_'s docking bay. As the _Destrier_ automatically lowered her landing gear, the tractor beam set the ship down in the docking bay, and then engaged the magnetic field that kept the atmosphere inside the bay. Stormtroopers then poured out from the blast doors and took up position outside of the freighter, all of their large DC-15 rifles aimed at the ship.

From inside, the entry hatch opened, and the ramp extended out. A stormtrooper sergeant stepped forward and called into the ship.

"Come out with your hands up!" There was a brief moment of silence before two sets of hands became visible in the hatch, followed by the two occupants. When Randal and Rika began to slowly walk down the ramp, all of the blaster rifles followed them.

"Hands on your head," the sergeant barked. When Randal and Rika complied, he nodded towards another clone that then holstered his weapon and approached the two captives. Quickly, and none too gently, the trooper removed their blasters and then frisked them for any other weapons. When he found none, he nodded to the sergeant.

"Take them to the brig," the sergeant said as he motioned with one finger. The clone pushed the two forward, but Randal protested.

"Hey, just what is this all about? We haven't done anything!"

"You can take it up with the Captain when he interrogates you," was all the sergeant said before he motioned for his squad to enter the ship for a sweep. As Randal and Rika were led to the detention area, the stormtroopers inside the ship marched through the circular corridors and found R3-G5 hiding in his storage locker.

"Sir, we've located an astromech droid," one of the troopers called out to the sergeant. The sergeant entered the ship and gave the droid a once over glance before he made his decision.

"Fit him with a restraining bolt and take him to droid maintenance. He might have information that the Captain can use."

"Yes sir!" In an instant, a restraining bolt was applied to Geefive's exterior frame. And though it really had no effect on him, Geefive played his part and instantly entered into his neutral standing position.

"Come along," the trooper said to Geefive before he turned to walk out of the ship. Geefive extended his third wheel and simply followed the trooper, just like a well-mannered restrained droid should. The sergeant watched as the droid followed the trooper out of the ship, and then he turned to the remaining clones.

"Continue your search of the ship. Make sure you download the ship's flight records."

* * *

As Randal and Rika were led to the brig, Randal made a note of every turn and level that they were sent on. When they finally entered the brig, a stormtrooper went to stand by the control station while another pushed Randal and Rika into the one of the cells. Before they could catch their balance, the control switch was flipped, and the radiating red force field engaged, trapping them inside. Once they were secured inside their holding cell, the troopers began to leave the room, but not before the clone placed the two blaster pistols in a holding box next to the control station.

When the stormtroopers left, Randal looked around the cell and was about to speak, but the hydraulic door to the detention center opened, and a gray uniformed man in his mid forties entered, all the while keeping a smug look on his face. He stood in front of the cell for a good time without speaking, only looking in on the two as if they were some sort of zoo exhibit.

"According to your ship's registration, your name is Captain Sarn," the Imperial Officer said in his smug voice.

"That's right. And what do they call you, besides Captain Jack-Ass?" Randal said as he leaned on the cell wall.

"Charming," The Officer said as he narrowed his eyes into slits. "I am Captain Homanlif. And who are you? An Insurgent contact?" Captain Homanlif said as he looked at Rika.

"What? No, I'm his co-pilot, Mar'la," Rika said as she stared at the Captain. Homanlif raised a brow high onto his forehead and lightly smirked.

"Co-pilot? Indeed. Now, tell me what I want to know and you can save yourself a lot of trouble and pain. Refuse, and I promise that I'll make you regret not taking this offer."

"Just what in the slimy side of a Hutt are you talking about? You pulled my ship in, unprovoked, and now you're threatening us with torture? I thought the Republic was bad, but this is ridiculous!" Randal yelled through the red containment field.

"Don't play naive with me, Captain. I know full well what you're doing."

"Well then tell me, because I'm pretty much in the dark here," Randal said as he crossed his arms. Captain Homanlif smirked and began to walk slowly back and forth in front of the cell as he spoke.

"You are in alliance with rogue senators who are plotting terrorist activities against the Empire. You were seen speaking with a senator on Coruscant, and then you came here to Orto. Why? What did this senator want with this frozen waste of a planet? Were you making contact with one of his agents? Or were you dropping off orders to a sleeper cell? Tell me!" Randal stared blankly back at Homanlif for a moment before he shook his head.

"Listen, I don't know what you've been drinking, but you really need to lay off of it. It's making your brain go soft," Randal said as he tapped the side of his head. Homanlif stared at Randal for a moment as he snarled his lips. But instead of arguing further, he stood tall and pulled at the bottom of his gray tunic.

"Fine. Have it your way, Captain Sarn. But let me assure you that the Interrogation Division on Coruscant will make the worst pain you've ever experienced seem like a walk in the pleasure district." With this, Captain Homanlif turned and began to exit the room.

"The worst pain I've experienced happened to be in the pleasure district!" Randal called out to the Captain as the hydraulic doors shut. Randal shook his head, and then turned to Rika.

"All right, we don't have much time before this ship goes into hyperspace. We've got to be off of here before that. Okay, flip the switch." Rika nodded her head, and closed her eyes as she called on the Force.

She took several deep breaths, and then extended her hand towards the control panel and the simple lever that would deactivate the containment field. As she strained to concentrate, Randal leaned on the wall and watched her struggle with a concerned look on his face.

He had seen several Jedi through his years as a traveler, not too many of them, but enough to get an idea of the type of powers they had. From what he could remember, a simple trick like this wouldn't require much effort at all. But Rika was struggling as if she were trying to move an entire planet. He had noticed that their game of Darnek had taken a toll on her, but he had thought that maybe that was just normal strain for a Jedi. But now, as he watched her, he finally noticed that she had some sort of problem connecting to the Force; not that Randal was an expert on the subject though.

As Rika concentrated on the switch, sweat began to appear on her brow. Her extended arm began to shake, and her breathing was becoming more labored. The switch on the control panel began to shake slightly, and then with a sudden swift motion, it fell to the off position and the hazy red containment field fell. Rika then let out a large breath, and nearly tumbled over on herself. Randal caught her and helped her back up.

"Are you okay?" he asked.

"I'm fine," she said, brushing his helping arms away.

"No you're not. Look, I've seen Jedi in action before, and that sort of trick wouldn't make them that winded, not by a long shot." Rika looked at Randal and then let out a sigh.

"All right. I've been having trouble calling on the Force. It started while I was escaping from Guannk and it only seems to be getting worse as time goes on. But there's no time to worry about that now, let's get off of this ship." Randal nodded, and after retrieving the two blaster pistols from the storage box, they went to the hydraulic door and tried to open it at the push button. But instead of opening, the door simply stood firm.

Randal sighed, and opened an access panel near the door controls and started to pull out wires that were inside. After he spliced a few together, the connection sparked and the door opened. He quickly drew his blaster from its holster, and with a nod to Rika to do the same, he took out into the corridor as silently, yet as quickly, as he could.

* * *

The clone trooper nodded once to the EV-Series Supervisor Droid who was in charge of the droid maintenance department, and then left the large cluttered room. Geefive swiveled his ocular receptor ever so slightly to watch the trooper leave. When he was sure that the clone was gone, he turned his focus onto the Supervisor Droid, who was now walking towards him with a large box of standard tools.

"Well now, my little friend. Let's see what secrets you're trying to hide from the Empire," the Supervisor droid said in its electronically resonating voice. Geefive focused on the large data extractor probe in its hand and began to shuffle backwards. The tool was known for being quite brutal, even erasing more of a droid's "non-essential" programming in order to extract the information that it wanted. Droids who had undergone this form of data extraction were often left empty and hollow, as if their very electronic souls were erased. If fear were possible for a droid to feel, Geefive was dripping it like yesterday's old lubricant.

The Supervisor droid must have been able to sense Geefive's discomfort, so it reached for the control module to send a jolt to Geefive's motor impulse unit to make him stay still. But to the Supervisor droid's surprise, Geefive kept moving. The droid hit the button a few more times, and when its internal thought algorithms figured out what was going on, it was too late.

From out of two panels atop Geefive's dome, twin blaster pistols mounted to telescopic arms emerged and fired a quick salvo into the Supervisor droid, sending only sparking charred debris into the far bulkhead.

Geefive twittered a colorful insult at the remains of the Supervisor droid and extended his third wheel. With a quick motion, his twin blasters retracted into their compartments and he was off back to the _Destrier_.

* * *

Morthiath looked out of the canopy on the _Black Death_ and watched as the enormous triangular shaped _Venator_-Class star destroyer pulled alongside the _Acclamator_ that he was attached to. Briefly, Morthiath became nervous that someone might see his ship attached to the hull of the assault ship, but he brushed the thought away. For someone to see his ship attached in this way, they would have to be specifically looking for him. Space was much too large for someone to just accidentally see a ship like the _Black Death_ attached to another, much larger ship in this fashion. The V-Wing starfighters that were patrolling around the _Venator_ might have a better chance at spotting him, but pilot's eyes were usually focused on their direct path, or watching the screens of their sensors. The _Black Death_ was still running the signal jammer, so the only way for the pilots to find him was to actually spot him on the other's hull. While this was always a possibility, Morthiath put this thought out of his mind.

The _Venator_ slowed and matched the speed of the _Acclamator_, staying several hundred meters off of the port side. Morthiath reclined back in his pilot's chair, and thought about his predicament. Sarn and the Jedi were prisoners now; there was no getting around that. But, Morthiath knew that if he tagged along and waited for the two to be transferred to another ship, he could strike then. Hopefully, with his skills, he could get the drop on them and still make it into hyperspace before the Imperials could do anything about it.

But was this star destroyer going to take the prisoners out of the system, or was the assault ship going to do this? This question racked Morthiath's mind, so much so that he gave in and decided that he had to find an answer.

Still keeping his signal jammer up and running, Morthiath engaged another one of the special features of his ship; a holo-transceiver splicer. With this, Morthiath could listen in on holographic transmissions. While the tool worked, its major drawback was that for it to work, one had to be very close to one of the recipients. In Morthiath's case, he was just close enough to pick up the signal coming from the _Acclamator_. However, with his signal jammer still operative, the signal was coming in with erratic patterns.

"This is Captain … of the… What brings you to…?"

"… Homanlif. I… tracked prisoners… escorting them back to… questioning."

"Very well. It's good… scum like that…death."

The signal then stopped, so whatever pleasantries the two Captains were exchanging must have come to an end. Morthiath turned off his splicer probe and let out an annoyed sigh. This hunt was taking far too long and was wasting his time.

* * *

Randal paused when he came to a turn and looked around the corner. So far, they had been lucky that they hadn't run into any patrols or wandering officers, but they still couldn't be careless. Down the corridor was more empty space, so Randal gave a sign to move on and started to make his way down the path.

But as soon as he started, a door along the right hand side opened, and a stormtrooper emerged.

"Halt!" the stormtrooper yelled as he brought his blaster pistol up, but before he had a chance to use it, Randal fired a blast that hit him square in the helmet. The stormtrooper fell backwards and hit the deck like a ton of permacrete. From behind the now dead trooper, more of his brethren began to fire, and one of them set off the alarm.

Randal cursed loudly as both he and Rika opened fire blindly and started to run down the corridor as blaster fire raced passed them. The duo ducked down the nearest off branching hallway and used the wall as cover.

"Great! They've got us pinned here. You wouldn't happen to know of any other way to the hangar, would you?" Randal yelled as he fired blindly around the corner back at the stormtroopers.

"I think we can get there by going this way!" Rika yelled over the constant blaster fire. Rika then took the lead and began to run down the open corridor, while Randal followed and kept his blaster pistol aimed backwards. Rika indeed did know of several different paths to get to the hangar bay, after all, she had been on a number of _Acclamator_ ships during the war. She now only hoped that this particular path was a quick one.

* * *

Geefive continued to roll down the corridor as an alarm klaxon began to sound, and stormtroopers from all over began to pour out and run towards the stern end of the ship. Since Geefive was simply a droid in their eyes, they paid him no mind. In fact, Geefive was able to make it back to the hangar bay with no problems. He then rolled over to the large tractor beam emitter that sat on the far end of the hangar bay from the _Destrier_ and found the computer access terminal.

With a simple flick, his computer uplink module was out, and was accessing the files necessary to take the tractor beam offline. It would have worked, if not for one small problem.

"What's that droid doing here? I ordered you to take it to droid maintenance." Geefive's rear ocular receptor caught sight of the stormtrooper sergeant as he berated a lower ranking trooper. Within moments, the team of four stormtroopers was making their way over to him. Geefive's complex thought matrices and algorithms analyzed the amount of time it would take to bring the tractor beam offline compared to how long it would take before the troopers opened fire. There would be a 3.6754 second difference, in the stormtroopers' favor.

Geefive removed his uplink module and turned around to face the troopers. The four-man team spread out, and cut off any escape route that Geefive might have taken.

"This droid was trying to shut down the tractor beam. Treat it as a hostile," the sergeant said. The four stormtroopers then leveled their blaster rifles at the droid, but the little astromech did something that they weren't expecting.

In a quick pop of blue energy, a spherical energy shield expanded outwards from Geefive, surrounding him in a protective bubble. His two blaster pistols emerged from their hidden compartment, and began to fire at the four troopers.

"He's got a shield!" one of the troopers yelled before he was cut down. The remaining three began to fire at Geefive, but their blaster bolts merely ricocheted off of his shield bubble. With computer accurate precision, Geefive continued to fire and cut down the remaining three. While making a satisfied hum at his performance, Geefive turned back to the computer terminal, but was interrupted by more blaster fire coming from a distant corridor.

When he turned to look, he saw both Randal and Rika running from the aforementioned corridor, making a mad dash for the _Destrier_.

"Come on! Let's get off of this rust bucket!" Randal yelled. Geefive was about to say that he hadn't brought the tractor beam offline yet, but the dozen stormtroopers that poured out of the same corridor with their blaster rifles firing convinced him that it could wait.

When Randal and Rika made it to the entry ramp of the _Destrier_, they took cover behind the ship's bulkheads and fired back at the Troopers. Geefive rolled directly into their line of fire, and with his shield still up, began to fire wildly into the pack of stormtroopers, all the while rolling backwards into the ship. When Geefive passed the threshold, Randal closed the hatch and ran to the cockpit.

Geefive deactivated his bubble shield and followed close behind Rika as she ran to the cockpit as well. In the cockpit, Randal was busily bringing the ship online, while outside, the stormtroopers were taking up defensive positions around the ship.

"Destroyer droid shields?" Rika said as she sat down in the co-pilot's chair. Randal lightly shrugged as he continued to bring the systems online.

"Like I said, he's not your average astromech droid." When Geefive entered the cockpit, he busily whistled something to Randal, which made him pause as he was flipping switches.

"What did he say?" Rika asked.

"He wasn't able to turn off the tractor beam," Randal said as the engines began to whine to life.

"What!?!" Rika yelled as she jumped up in their seat.

"It's no problem. Look, you're going to have to man the top turret, okay? Their going to be sending fighters after us, I'm sure."

"But what about the tractor beam?"

"You let me worry about the tractor beam, just get on that top turret!" Rika let out a frustrated sigh, and jumped up from her seat. She ran down the small corridor to the main cabin, then climbed up the ladder to the top turret controls. She jumped in and turned on the targeting screen and then put on the headset and turned it on.

"I'm ready," she said.

"Good. Hold on, this is going to be a bumpy ride!" Randal exclaimed as the _Destrier _engaged her repulsor lift modules and lifted off of the deck.

From within the cockpit, Randal had slaved the bottom turret to fire forwards, activated by the thumb switches on the control yoke. As the _Destrier_ lifted up into air, Randal took aim at the tractor beam emitter, and with two quick shots, the emitter exploded in a large display of ionic energy.

Randal quickly spun the _Destrier_ around to face the magnetic field that was keeping the atmosphere in, and with another salvo of well aimed shots, took out the field emitters. When the field dropped, the atmosphere of the hangar exploded outwards, sending the stormtroopers unfortunate enough to be inside the hangar flying outwards into deep space. Large safety blast doors that were meant to be a safety device began to slam home over the now exposed hangar bay entrance, but before they closed, the _Destrier _rocketed out and into freedom.

* * *

Captain Homanlif stood on the bridge, watching the monitors that were showing his prisoners' escape, all the while a thick vein on his temple throbbing in anger.

"Get them back on this ship at all costs!" he yelled to his junior officers, who then silently nodded and began to order the artillery crews to open fire. Homanlif turned his attention to a holo display of the freighter trying to run, and waited to see his captives brought back to justice.

* * *

Randal pushed the throttle to full, but he knew that the V-Wing starfighters that were now in pursuit would easily gain on him. His navicomputer was busily recalculating the jump to the D'onva System, but he knew that it wouldn't calculate it fast enough. As if they were right on queue, the V-Wings strafed the _Destrier_, firing on the ship's deflector shields. Rika opened fire with the turret, but her shots missed.

To make matters worse, large blue bolts of turbolaser fire were now streaking past, threatening to knock the _Destrier_ right out of space. The V-Wings were coming back around for another attack run, but this time Rika's shots were more accurate. One of the starfighters ignited into a large display of burning oxygen reserves and electronically hissing debris. The other V-Wings' fire hit the _Destrier_, but the deflector shield held.

The light on the navicomputer was still red, but Randal had a feeling that it would turn green any second. Or at least he hoped it did, because the turbolaser fire was now getting too close for comfort. As if his mere thoughts about it made it happen, one of the turbolaser shots hit the _Destrier_ in her rear port side. The impact rocked the ship so violently that Randal nearly flew out of his chair. Sparks flew out from one of the control surfaces in the cockpit as electrical energy passed over the rear section of the ship. Buzzers and warning alarms began to sound inside the cockpit as the deflector shields were totally depleted. Randal quickly reached for the button to turn the alarms off and pressed the button for the communication transceiver.

"Rika, you still with me?"

"Yeah, but that last blast knocked the wind out of me."

Randal was about to tell her to get ready for another incoming strafing run, but the light on the navicomputer turned green. He smirked widely to himself and reached for the hyperdrive lever.

"Hold on, we're making the jump!" Randal quickly pulled the lever down, and the _Destrier_ disappeared in a blinding flash of light.

* * *

Morthiath sat and watched in puzzlement as he saw the _Venator_ break off and began to fire at something out of Morthiath's visual range. From the thrum of the _Acclamator_'s engines that was reverberating through the magnetic docking claw, Morthiath could tell that the large assault ship was accelerating as well.

Several of the V-Wing fighters began to race past, pursuing a target that was still blocked from Morthiath's point of view. As Morthiath watched what he could, he had an unsettling feeling about just whom they were pursuing.

As if fate were mocking him, he caught a glimpse of the _Destrier_ being pursued by the Imperial starfighters. Morthiath let out a curse in his native tongue, and frantically thought about what he should do next.

If he were to detach, he might have the possibility to intercept them, but he would be completely exposed to the Imperials, who would no doubt try and bring him in for questioning. He could fight them off, but the chances for one ship to take on two capital ships along with their fighters and survive were incalculable.

But before Morthiath could make his decision, the _Destrier_ winked away in a flash as it entered hyperspace. Morthiath let out a frustrated yell as he watched his only chance at catching his prey slip through his fingers. As an after thought, he engaged his signal splicer to see if the Imperials had any sort of lead. Again the signal was static ridden, but he could make out just enough.

"How… to escape?"

"Doesn't matter. We… navicomputer coordinates. We… pursuing them…"

Morthiath recognized the two voices, and smirked widely at the mentioning of the navicomputer coordinates. If the _Acclamator_ was going to pursue Sarn and the Jedi, then all Morthiath had to do was enjoy the ride. Once they reached this destination, he would then strike and claim his prize.

The _Rapture_ followed Imperial procedure by dumping its trash, mainly the remnants of the tractor beam emitter, and then entered hyperspace, all the while unknowing that attached to her hull was a parasite taking a free ride.

* * *

Captain Homanlif stared blankly at the spot in empty space where the Corellian freighter had just whisked away into hyperspace. Without having that ship, he was going to have to answer too many questions about his actions. It might even be enough to have Admiral Phel bust him down to the rank of a Lieutenant. After all, his official orders were to escort Senator Organa from Alderaan to Coruscant. They said nothing about pursuing suspicious freighters across the galaxy. If he were able to bring in prisoners, then his actions would be justified, but now, without so much as a single captive, it seemed like only gross dereliction of duty.

As the Captain stared at the holodisplay panel, wondering about the future of his career, a junior officer came up to him and spoke.

"Sir, the search party reports that they found nothing suspicious aboard the freighter. However, they did download the history files from the navicomputer, and discovered a set of incomplete coordinates." Homanlif snapped his head around and looked the junior officer in the eye.

"How incomplete were they?" he asked firmly.

"We don't know their final destination yet, but technicians are working on that as we speak. What we do know is that they are heading for the Porlut Sector." Homanlif let a brief smile cross his lips before he nodded.

"Set course for the Porlut Sector. Inform me once the technicians have narrowed down the system." The junior officer nodded and turned to leave, just as the Communications Officer called out to the Captain.

"Sir, it's the Captain of the _Sunderer_." Homanlif let out an annoyed silent sigh and motioned for the nearest holodisplay. Captain Hoyt was proving to be more meddlesome and annoying than Homanlif could have expected. Homanlif stood tall as the holodisplay flickered to life and the likeness of Captain Hoyt appeared.

"How did they manage to escape?" Hoyt asked. Homanlif pursed his lips together and thought to himself that it wasn't any of Hoyt's business. In fact, if Hoyt's gunner crews had been any more accurate, they might have destroyed the small freighter.

"Doesn't matter," Homanlif said dismissively. "We have their navicomputer coordinates. We are beginning to pursue them now." Captain Hoyt was about to say something, but Homanlif gave the signal to end the transmission.

Homanlif watched a holodisplay of the forward view as his crew went about the standard procedures for entering hyperspace. Through his feet, he could feel the slight trembling as the garbage hatch opened and the debris was launched into space. Within moments, the _Rapture_'s engines wined up to full power, and with an explosion of energy, the assault ship rocketed away and entered the alternate dimension known as hyperspace.


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter 12 Broken Down

_Unknown, Sluis Sector, Outer Rim_.

As the _Destrier_ rocketed away from the Imperial ships around Orto, Randal checked over the navicomputer destination to see that it was still accurate. After satisfying himself with this, he left his pilot's chair, and walked into the main cabin. As he entered, Rika walked out from the ladder area that went to the top turret controls.

"Well, we made it," Randal said as he cracked a smile and leaned on the bulkhead. Rika was about to agree, but a sudden jolt shook the _Destrier_ so violently that she lost her balance and fell to the deck. Randal was dislodged from his leaning position and fell to the deck as well. From inside the cockpit, Geefive yelled a high-pitched screech as he too fell over from the violent jerk.

As Randal got up, lightly cussing to himself, he thought he heard something weird and out of place: silence.

"What happened?" Rika asked as she rubbed her head.

"I don't know, but we're not in hyperspace anymore," he said as he gave Rika a hand up. When she was standing, she narrowed her brow and lightly shook her head.

"Did the navicomputer miscalculate something?"

"No, I don't think so. If it did that, we'd be nothing more than space dust right now. Something must have happened to the hyperdrive." As if to back up his hypothesis, thick acrid smoke began to drift into the main cabin from the engine room. As soon as Randal spotted it, a warning alarm went off, flooding the cabin with its pulsating red light. Randal ran to the engine room and grabbed the fire extinguisher. He then keyed the engine room's door open, and as he waved the thick acrid smoke away from his face, he began to spray the chemical compound into the room.

Geefive was now rolling into the same room, and as he was able to see through the thick smoke, he made his way to the ventilation control station, and evacuated the smoky air through the emergency system. Within moments, the thick haze of smoke was gone, but the acrid smell of burnt electronics remained.

Randal coughed a few times and blinked his eyes rapidly to get rid of the lingering effects of the smoke. Rika stepped into the engine room and looked around at the soot-covered components.

"What part of the ship was on fire?" she asked. Randal shook his head and took in a deep breath before he surveyed the damage.

"Well, it looks like the hyperdrive burned up," he said as he knelt beside the large cylindrical box. Normally it would be emitting a sort of bluish light to show that it was getting power, but now it was nothing more than a lifeless singed block. After looking over it for a minute, he sighed and stood up.

"Geefive, do a quick scan of it and see what's wrong with it. Hopefully we can fix it and be on our way." The astromech droid rolled over to the unit and began scanning it with his ocular receptor, which produced an encompassing blue line as it passed over the surface. After a few passes, he deactivated his scanner and rotated his dome to look at Randal. After a series of beeps and twitters, all of which sounded frustrated, Randal sighed again and nodded his head dejectedly.

"What did he say?" Rika asked as she took on a look of confusion.

"He said he can't get a good reading from this position since this is only about 25% of the actual unit. He needs to scan the entire thing before he can figure out what went wrong."

"Well, why doesn't he get a better vantage point then?"

"Because the majority of the unit is kept below the decking plates, shrouded by all the other engineering parts. We're going to have to remove the whole damned thing for him to scan it. And to make matters worse, we can only drop the unit from the outside." Rika took in a slow steady breath and let it out through her nose. She knew exactly what that meant. It meant that they were going to have to land somewhere for repairs.

"Looks like we're going to have to find someplace close," Randal said as he left the engine room and headed back towards the cockpit. Geefive remained in the engine room to make sure that the fire affected no other systems, but Rika followed Randal.

Randal flopped down into his seat and lightly looked when Rika sat down in the co-pilot's chair. Randal turned on the navicomputer, which itself was confused as to why they had dropped out of hyperspace. Randal had to manually shutdown and reactivate the computer before he could search for new coordinates. As the possibilities came up, Rika read the names and cocked a brow in question.

"So how far did we make it?"

"We were only in hyperspace for a couple of minutes, so we should still be in the same sector."

"Really?" Rika said in a surprised tone.

"The _Destrier_'s fast, but she's not that fast. She only has a class 1 hyperdrive. We're far enough away that those Imperials will never find us, but not close enough to go back to Orto."

"You have a backup unit, don't you?" Rika asked.

"Of course, otherwise it would take us probably a hundred years to make it to the nearest system. But of course we'd run out of fuel and food long before that happened. The backup's nothing to brag about, a class 10, but it'll get us to someplace to make the repairs. We just have to find a place quiet enough."

Randal continued to look at the possibilities, and ruled several of them out due to their distance or large populations. The computer eventually found a system with a life sustainable planet with no indigenous population, though it was a good distance away.

"Here we go, this one should do nicely."

"Where is it?" Rika asked.

"A good ways away from here. I've never heard of it before, but there's nobody living there. It should be good enough for our needs."

"How long until we get there?"

"Well, with the secondary hyperdrive, I'd guess about 12 hours. I'll send Bees a message saying we're going to be delayed." Rika nodded and sat back in her seat while Randal moved to the chair behind the pilot's and keyed in the appropriate communications channel. It took some time before he got an answer, but when he did, he remembered to use the old smuggler's code.

"Transworld Shipping," the voice of Jonas Bees said.

"Yeah, this is Nabin."

"Nabin? We heard you ran into a little trouble. Were you able to settle that deal?" Randal smirked at the reference to their being captured by the assault ship. Obviously Bees had been watching their departure on his scanners.

"Yeah, that was no problem. But, we've seen to run into a snag. We can take care of it, but it'll delay the original shipment date." On the other end of the communication, there was a brief pause before Bees answered.

"Understood. I'll let our client know to expect the shipment a little later than expected." The transmission ended, so Randal stood up from that chair and returned to his pilot's seat. He leaned over to switch on an intercom and spoke into the headpiece he kept attached to the bulkhead.

"Geefive, is everything okay back there?" The droid answered with a series of beeps that sounded only mildly annoyed. "Good. Switch the drivelines to run off of the secondary unit. I've found a place that should work for the repairs." Geefive twittered another response, and within a few moments, the red light on the console turned green, showing that the secondary unit was up and running.

Randal confirmed the coordinates in the navicomputer and then reached for the hyperdrive lever. "Here goes nothing."

* * *

_Porlut Sector, Outlying edge of the D'onva System, Outer Rim_.

Several hours after Morthiath's hitched ride had left Orto, the Acclamator-Class assault ship came out of hyperspace. While the ship was traveling, the _Black Death_'s navicomputer was inoperable due to the ship being in hyperspace, which only confused the computer when it tried to locate its position. But now that they had reverted to real space, the computer was able to determine its exact location.

Morthiath raised one of his heavily scarred brows as he wondered what the significance of this area would have been to his prey. The planet of D'onva was a simple rock that's only real value was the metal ore that was mined there. Even during the clone war, the planet itself wasn't much of a military target, nor was its metal reserves worth enough for the Separatists to invade. But what did make the planet a target for the Separatists was the strategic location of the planet. From this point, they were able to stage attacks into the Mid Rim worlds. It was for this reason that the Confederacy invaded, and succeeded in capturing the planet.

But, as far as Morthiath knew, there wasn't anything of value here now that would bring Sarn to this destination.

Morthiath continued to think about this as the _Rapture_ continued on its sublight course for the main planet. On the bridge of the ship, Captain Homanlif mulled over the same mystery as he watched a holodisplay list all of the facts about the planet. Whatever it was that Captain Sarn wanted here, it surely wasn't of a military nature. This place held bad memories for Homanlif, especially since it was the place where he had lost his Venator-Class star destroyer and was relegated to the old _Rapture_. Homanlif would have found it ironic that his career took a dive at this location but now could rise again at the same spot, except for the fact that he didn't believe in such things. As he read over the little amount of data that was coming across the screen, a doubt began to grow in his mind that Sarn and his Twi'lek companion might not be insurrectionists like he had previously thought. If this was the case, then his career would likely end here. The irony again escaped him.

Homanlif turned from the drearily boring data stream and let his focus fall on a screen showing the exterior camera angles that looked out into the blackness of space. The sight was much like any view of the void that Homanlif had seen before, except for the large debris field of wreckage that surrounded the planet. For a moment, Homanlif let his mind drift back to the last time he was in this system, and the terrible battle that was waged. Many ships were lost, on both sides, and several of their large empty husks were still drifting aimlessly in the void.

"Sir," his second in command said, "Scanners show that no ship has entered this system in some time. It could be possible that Captain Sarn didn't come to this planet."

"Perhaps he hasn't arrived yet. The _Sunderer_'s guns hit his ship pretty hard before he jumped. Perhaps his ship was damaged."

"Perhaps," his second said. "His ship also could have fallen apart once it made the jump."

"Possible, but unlikely. Corellian ships are made to withstand anything thrown at them. No, Sarn is still out there and there's something of value that he wants here."

"But what? This planet is nothing more than a giant mine, there's nothing any terrorists could use here." Homanlif let silence come between them as his gaze again focused on the large debris field.

"What he's looking for might not be on the surface, but it's not the only thing in this system. Set a course for that debris field, and keep all scanners on stand by."

"Yes sir," his second said before he turned and went to issue the orders.

Back on the _Black Death_, Morthiath narrowed his brow as he watched the pieces of debris, both large and small, pass by the hull of the Acclamator. Morthiath's hunting instincts told him that this debris field was a perfect place to hide and lay in wait for an unsuspecting visitor. In his mind, he started to think about the possibilities of using this graveyard to spring a trap on Sarn when he arrived, but when a large chunk of wreckage passed, a sight in the debris field made him inhale a quick shocked breath. Directly in front of the Acclamator was the large hulking form of a Trade Federation Battleship! Morthiath instinctively reached for his control yoke and was about to engage his engine to get out of the area, but he soon took notice of the fact that the Battleship had no running lights nor was it moving into an attack position.

The crew of the Imperial ship must have had the same reaction that Morthiath did, because the ship instantly turned to starboard to bring along side the ship's main guns. But once they realized that the battleship was dormant, they leveled out and continued to slowly cruise through the debris.

As the large triangular ship continued to travel through the maze, Morthiath decided that he had had enough of this piggyback riding, so he detached his magnetic docking clamp and let his ship float lifeless until the Acclamator disappeared into the debris. Morthiath then engaged his engines, and while keeping his jamming equipment running, he performed a 180-degree loop and headed back towards the edge of the wreckage. From here, his scanners would be able to locate any incoming vessel into the system, and it also kept tabs on where the Acclamator was.

At the same time that Morthiath was detaching from the _Rapture_, Homanlif stared blankly at the numerous different Separatist capital ships that littered the area, completely unaware of the departing parasite. From his count, there must be nearly a dozen ships that were more or less still intact. Not enough to start a full-scale war, but they did number just high enough to be considered a threat if someone seized them. As far as he was able to tell, these ships were all manned by droids and droid brains, with no real living command crews on them. That wasn't uncommon for the Separatists during the war, but there was usually at least one command ship that was manned by a live crew. But whatever the reason for this, Homanlif knew that he had found what Captain Sarn was coming for. He wanted these ships.

Captain Homanlif let a brief and rare smile cross his lips as he turned to face his command crew. "This is what that rebellious freighter Captain wanted, and it proves that there is a conspiracy against the Empire. We will wait here for this Captain Sarn, and when he arrives, we will take him into custody and bring in his coconspirators. Commander Eckhart, find a location for the _Rapture_ and place her into stand by. When he arrives, I don't want to spoil the surprise." His second nodded to the order and began to put them into motion.

As Morthiath settled into his chair to again wait, he noticed that the indicator for the Acclamator winked out. Briefly he tapped the monitor, and after figuring out that the scanner wasn't malfunctioning, he wrote the large capital ship off to entering hyperspace and settled down into his chair. He smirked to himself at his own intelligence. The Acclamator must not have been able to discern why Sarn would come to this planet, and either was called back or figured that this system was only a decoy in his prey's navicomputer. But Morthiath knew differently. Sarn was a smuggler, and D'onva was in need of supplies that were being horded by the Empire. It was obvious to him that his contact on Orto had given him a shipment to make to this planet. Now all he had to do was wait for the delivery boy to arrive, and he would pounce.

* * *

Twelve hours later, the _Destrier_ came out of hyperspace near a large putrid green planet. As Randal engaged the sublight engines, he let a frown cross his face as he looked over the place where they were going to have to set down and make their repairs.

"What's this planet called?" Rika asked as she frowned her own disapproval for the planet. Randal leaned over to his left, and flipped through a scanner station.

"It's called Dagobah. The scanners aren't showing any technology, or at least nothing big enough to register. There's a whole lot of life readings, though. My guess is it's unpopulated by any sentients. Knowing my luck it's probably full of mynocks and gizkas."

"That's the second time you've mentioned gizkas. I thought those small reptiles were harmless?" Rika said as Randal began to take the _Destrier_ into an approach vector for the surface.

"Yeah, they may be harmless, but you learn to despise the things when you get an entire colony of them breeding on your ship. Let's just say I don't want to have to deal with that problem again." Rika fought hard to keep a large smile from crossing her face as she saw the level of frustration just remembering that situation was bringing to Randal.

The _Destrier_ rocked slightly as the shields took the brunt of the reentry burn, and then the hull was encased in the thick cloud covered canopy that enclosed the planet. Randal backed up the throttle and started to pay close attention to his instruments. The computer didn't have an exact figure on where the ground level was at, but he gave himself a broad window incase the surface came up quicker than the computer was figuring. As it turned out, Randal's cautionary attitude paid off, because the real ground level was a good ten meters above the computer's estimate.

Randal let the ship hover twenty meters off of the ground, which was at the top of the large gnarled trees that rose out from the thick fog covered floor. After a moment where Randal let the computer recalculate the surface topography, he looked for a decently cleared spot where he could land the _Destrier_.

Slowly, the _Destrier_ moved forward, and after a few minutes, Randal found a decent spot and set the ship down. Once all of the scopes were green, Randal shut the engines down and stood up from his chair.

"Well, this is it. I'm going to shut down the primary power systems so we don't leave a signature on the surface. Hopefully we can get this repair made and get off of this mud hole." Rika nodded and stood from the co-pilot's chair and followed Randal to the access ramp. Randal dropped the ramp, and after making a disgusted face at the high level of humidity and heat that flooded into the cabin, he stepped out and onto the unknown world.

The planet of Dagobah was certainly nothing to write home about. The surface had very little area that wasn't covered in deep stagnant pools of water, or that weren't covered in a thick soupy fog. Trees grew distantly from each other, but each one reached high into the air. The branches all grew out of the trunks in weird erratic ways as if they had been sick from the day they sprouted. At the feet of the trees were large thorn covered bushes, and long fingers of old moss hung down from the branches as if they were what was bringing moisture up to the trees. All around the ship, the sounds of insects chirped, and small reptiles croaked as they ate their meals. Over all, the planet was no place that anyone would want to spend more time then they had to.

As Rika stepped off of the ramp and onto the thick rich earth, Geefive rolled down the ramp and made his way towards the area where he could access the hyperdrive. Randal again made another disgusted face at the climate and started to head towards Geefive, but a distant bestial roar stopped him dead in his tracks. The sound was fierce, and had enough resonance to let even a simple mouse droid know that whatever had made it was big.

"What was that?" Randal asked as he pulled out his blaster. Rika let a moment of silence pass as they both listened to the distance.

"I don't know, but it sounded large."

"And pissed off. Whatever it was, I don't want to get a closer look." Randal holstered his blaster and then nodded his head towards the ship, but not taking his eyes off of the surrounding tree line. "I've got some motion detecting perimeter monitors inside the cargo hold. We should probably set them up around the ship just in case something decides to pay us a visit."

"Sounds good to me," Rika said as she nodded. Randal nodded and after scanning the area around him one final time, he turned and led the way to the cargo hold. Inside, he had five of the devices, which appeared to be nothing more than half-meter tall pyramids with a pole extending upwards with a small screen mesh dish that would rotate when activated. One at a time, Randal and Rika lifted them up and carried them outside. From there, it was just a matter of positioning them into places that would work best.

In no time at all, they had three of the monitors up and running and the other two were all ready in position. As the two of them worked, Geefive twittered a call, and though Randal was going to get up and go see what he wanted, Rika volunteered. Though she wasn't fluid in astromech like Randal, she could understand that he wanted her to go inside the ship and unplug some of the systems from that end. While she was inside the ship working on this, Randal continued to bring the final two monitors online.

As luck would have it, the final monitor was proving to be the most difficult to activate, and Randal was getting frustrated at the machine. The humidity was also getting to him, so he took of his jacket and rolled up his sleeves. When he reached for the hydrospanner, he heard a ruffling noise coming from the brush in front of him.

He paused for a moment, but then continued to do what he was doing, but now he was keeping his ears open. At first he thought that maybe it was just his mind playing tricks on him, but he continued to hear the sounds of something moving closer. Out of the corner of his eye, Randal caught the movement of something that appeared to be jumping from one tree limb to the other, but before he could bring his full attention to it, it was gone.

As Randal finished up what he was doing and collected his tools, he couldn't help but get the feeling like he was being watched. As he placed the last of his tools into the toolbox, he could swear to himself that he could see a shadowy figure standing behind a tree looking at him. Randal lightly smirked, and jumped up quickly and leveled his blaster at the shadow.

"All right, I know you're there. Now step into the light and tell me what you want." At first it looked as if the shadow was going to step forward, but then it appeared as if it was about to go back behind the cover of the tree. It was then that Randal recognized that it was just the silhouette of a bush. He let out a breath of annoyance at his own jumpy nerves and then turned around. But where no one should have been standing, there was now a small green impish figure with large ears, wearing an old seasoned cloak. Randal jumped in surprise and quickly brought his blaster up, but before he could even think about firing, the pistol leapt from his hand and landed in the three fingered palm of his mystery visitor.

"Observant you are, but too trusting of your eyes." Randal blinked and tried to find his voice.

"Gen-general Yoda!?!" Randal finally managed to choke out. The small diminutive frame of the ancient Jedi Master did not hide the level of power that he held at his command. As Yoda's large eyes looked over Randal, his brow narrowed and his mouth rose up in a frown.

"Why are you here? Smuggler, are you? Or pirate looking for safe spot in this sector, hmm?"

"No, it's nothing like that, really," Randal said as he shook his head. He tried to take a step forward to make his way back to his ship, but Yoda sidestepped and continued to block Randal's path back to the _Destrier_. "Whoa, just let me explain things. We're only here to make repairs; my hyperdrive got damaged trying to escape from the Imperials."

"Ah, so fugitive you are. But this "we"; who else is with you?" Randal was about to say, but his answer came walking down the ramp. When Rika saw Randal with his hands upraised and the small figure standing before him, her jaw dropped in shock. She quickly shook it away and ran towards the two.

"Master Yoda!?! How can this be?" Yoda turned around to look at her, and when he saw her, his defensive demeanor melted away and he took on a posture that was more inviting.

"Padawan Tymor? Good to these old eyes to see you well, it is."

"It's good to see you as well, Master. Senator Organa had told me that you had attempted to defeat Darth Sidious, but were unsuccessful so you went into hiding." Yoda's gaze drooped slightly and he solemnly nodded his head.

"True, this is. But how did you speak to Organa? Receive the order to go into hiding, you received, yes?" Rika opened her mouth to answer, but stopped short and diverted her gaze in embarrassment.

"Yes, I received the message, but I went to Coruscant anyways. We went into the Temple, and I saw a surveillance tape that showed both you and Master Kenobi alive."

"Hmm. How did you make it to Coruscant, young Padawan?"

"With Randal's help. This is his ship, the _Destrier_. He took me to Coruscant and from there I've become his business partner."

"Smuggling?" Yoda asked as he turned to look at Randal. Randal shrugged his shoulders and tried to put his trademark smirk on.

"Well, it may not be honest, but it's a living." Yoda frowned at Randal, and then looked to Rika.

"Heh. Much to tell me you do, young Padawan. And much time we have to tell it, hmm?" Rika nodded, but before the two began to walk towards the entry ramp, Randal coughed and motioned towards his blaster.

"Can I have that back?" Yoda made a slight nod, and tossed it back to him with the Force. Randal holstered the weapon and picked up the toolbox to take over to where Geefive was working. He set down the toolbox and knelt down to get a better look at Geefive's work, and then he heard the strange menacing roar again, echoing through the swampy forest, but this time it seemed further away. Randal looked into the thick tree lined distance and shook his head. "Let's hurry up and get this over with."

Rika was halfway up the ramp whenever she heard the second roar, and stopped and turned around. Yoda too was peering off into the distance, with his eyes squinted as if he were leering at the maker of the offensive sound.

"Do you know what that is?" Rika asked. Yoda broke his gaze from the swampy forest and pressed his gimer stick on the ramp.

"Hmm, merely a local beast, nothing more." Rika watched as Yoda walked past, and after giving the foreboding swamp another once over, she followed the Jedi Master into the main cabin of the _Destrier._


	13. Chapter 13

Chapter 13 The Way of the Force

Rika and the old Jedi Master took a seat at the round holotable, and for the next thirty minutes, Rika recounted her misadventure from her escape of Guannk, to their landing on Dagobah. The entire time Rika recounted her journey, Yoda merely watched on with a frown. When she was done telling him her story, she was certain that he was going to reprimand her for being irresponsible and reckless. However, it was neither of these.

"Forgot to mention something, you did," Yoda said.

"I'm not sure what you mean, Master," Rika responded as she swallowed instinctively.

"Weak your connection with the Force has become, hmm?" Rika reactively jumped back slightly in her seat. How he would know of this, she had no idea. Quickly, she raced back through her recount of her journey and made sure that she had made no mention of how the Force was not coming to her as well as it should have. And yet, Master Yoda was able to see this as if it were plainly written on her face.

"Yes, it has," Rika admitted quietly. She diverted her eyes away from the Jedi Master, as if the look in his eyes would bring shame to her. But Yoda didn't mock her; instead he nodded his head and raised his brow.

"How long has this been, young Padawan?"

"I began to notice it since Guannk, after the gunship crash landed. Is it possible to regain my full connection with the Force?" Yoda touched his finger to his upper lip, and then nodded slowly.

"Yes, but much concentration on your part it will take. Willing are you to do this? If so, help you I can." Rika smiled widely and nodded. Yoda seemed as if he were about to say something, but they both were distracted by the sound of boots coming up the entry ramp. Randal entered the main cabin, wiping his hands off on an oily rag.

"Hey, I don't mean to interrupt, but we need someone with, well, I guess your special talents out here."

"Ah, a perfect test for you, young Tymor," Yoda said as he got down from his seat. Rika stood as well, and they both followed Randal back outside into the densely humid air. Randal took them over to the aft end of the ship, where Geefive was looking up with his ocular sensor. The hull plating was off and sitting on the ground, and in the access bay was the majority of the hyperdrive unit. Randal looked up at the unit and put his hand on it.

"We've got the unit ready to be dropped out, but we don't have the platform that's normally used to lower these things out of the bay. Lucky for me I've got two Jedi here."

"You want me to lower it, is that it?" Rika said as she looked over the unit. Normally this wouldn't take much effort, but now, she was uncertain if she would be able to handle it.

"Yeah, if you don't mind," Randal said as he looked at Rika with an upraised brow. He could feel her concern, even if he wasn't a Jedi.

"I don't know; it's a lot bigger than a couple of dice. Maybe Master Yoda should do this." Yoda looked sternly at Rika and smacked his gimer stick on the earthen ground.

"Is no different! Only different in your mind. To Jedi, all things are the same, only your mind which stands in the way. If you believe you can, than you will. If not, you will fail."

"But my connection with the Force is limited," Rika started to argue, but Yoda cut her off by prodding her with his stick.

"Something you are willing to overcome, yes? First step this is." Rika opened her mouth to protest again, but Yoda merely turned his back and began to walk over to a large rock, where he took a seat to watch. Rika turned back to the hyperdrive and took in a deep breath and closed her eyes.

Slowly she raised up her hand and concentrated on the large mechanical unit. Randal waited for her to give him a sign that she was ready, and he kept his hand on the final release lever. Slowly Rika opened her eyes, and when she gave a slight nod, Randal pulled the lever. At first, the unit seemed to jerk, but it stayed in place. With effort, Rika lowered her hand, and as she did so, the hyperdrive unit began to slowly come out of its bay and eventually touched the ground. When it was done, Rika let out a deep breath, and smiled widely. From his rock, Yoda nodded approvingly.

"First step in a road to recovery, you have taken."

For the next several hours, Randal and Geefive worked on the hyperdrive unit, which they had diagnosed with a fried alluvial damper, while Yoda instructed Rika as they meditated. Geefive assured Randal that the damper could be replaced with one from the backup hyperdrive, however a proper replacement would have to be found within the next hundred thousand lightyears. Randal had done the math; the estimated limit would be more than enough to get them to D'onva. There he was sure another damper could be located, after all, Corellian ships were quite common in the galaxy. The only thing that was now irritating Randal was the stubbornness of the burnt out damper and its refusal to come off in one piece.

As Randal cursed to himself and made a not so quiet effort at his work, Rika sat cross-legged on the ground with her eyes closed. She breathed in large breaths slowly, all the while listening to the calming directive voice of the small Jedi Master who watched on.

"Hmm, yes. Let the Force flow through you. Be not an obstruction in the flow of the Force, be merely a vessel to channel it, direct it where you want it to go. Let the Force guide you, as countless Jedi have done before. Listen to its call, and answer." Rika let out a long calming breath through her nose, and let the Force flow through her. Under the instruction of Master Yoda, she could feel the Force flow as freely through her as it ever did before, but a part of her knew that this was only because Yoda was there to guide her. As if he could sense her self doubt, Yoda sighed and changed tactics.

"Stretch out with the Force, let it become your eyes, your ears. Tell me, what do you see? Hmm? What do you hear?"

"I can see the ship, the ground surrounding it. I can hear an insect climbing on a rock. I can feel the wind blowing in the tops of the trees." Yoda nodded his head, and opened his eyes wide with excitement. Rika was now stretching out with the Force, letting it become her eyes and ears. If she could perform the next task he had for her, then there would only be one final test.

"Hmm, good. Stretch out with your emotions. Take hold of the rocks, and let the calming tide of the Force make them as weightless as air."

Rika didn't have to bring the rocks into focus, it was as if she were all ready fully aware of them before Yoda had given her the instructions. Within moments, the rocks around her began to stir, and slowly they lifted up and floated several feet in the air. Yoda nodded, and then leaned forward on his gimer stick.

"Now expand your horizon. Concentrate on further things; lift them as the wind would blow a leaf."

Without hesitation, Rika expanded her field of vision, and soon rocks and broken limbs meters away began to lift up. Even Randal's hydrospanner lifted off of the top of the hyperdrive unit, something that made him quite confused when he blindly reached up for it and couldn't find it. When he looked up and saw it floating in midair, it took him a moment before he reached up and took it out from the invisible hand that was holding it.

Yoda smiled widely, and then began to walk towards the ship. "Good, good. Only one more task have I for you, then your connection with the Force will be healed. Rest for now, and prepare for a long journey."

"A journey?" Rika asked as she stood from her sitting position. As she stood, all of the debris that she had floating around her gently came to rest back on the ground. Yoda paused on the entry ramp and nodded his head.

"Yes, several hours it will take. Be prepared you should be." Rika followed Yoda into the _Destrier_ and went to the small galley area to get a cup of water. She took a long drink of the cold fluid and then asked another question.

"Should I bring my lightsaber?" Yoda sat down at the round holotable and looked at Rika.

"If you want, but you will not need it for the final test." Rika nodded, even though she was confused as to what sort of task he would have her do, and why would they have to travel to do it?

* * *

Rika topped of her canteen and tightened the top before she placed it into her backpack. She had tried to ask the Jedi Master more about this final test, but he merely told her that all of her answers would be found out soon enough. She quickly zipped up the backpack and slung it over her shoulder. She then turned around and ran her hand over the hidden compartment in the bulkhead. At first it didn't seem as if it would open, but she felt a small section give, and the paneling opened up. Rika took her lightsaber out and for a moment held it in her hand. Even though it had only been out of her possession for a short while, it seemed as if she hadn't held it in ages. With a final nod of confidence, she hooked the saber onto her belt, and then went outside of the ship to meet up with Yoda.

Outside, Yoda was watching as Randal and Geefive started to put the hyperdrive back together. When Rika walked up with the pack on her back, Randal ran the back of his hand over his brow and gave her a quizzical look.

"The two of you going somewhere?" he asked.

"Yes. Master Yoda has a final test for me, and then my connectivity with the Force will be completely back. We should only be a few hours." Randal nodded, and then gave the surrounding jungle a once over.

"Well, you be safe. I keep hearing things out there. Most of them are probably small and harmless, but then some of them might not be."

"Hmm, safe we will be. Now come, young Padawan." Yoda then turned and began to walk into the jungle. Rika gave Randal a farewell nod and followed after the diminutive Jedi Master.

For what seemed like hours, Rika followed Yoda on what seemed like a blindly chosen path through the trees. Long sweeping branches from oddly shaped plants constantly got in her way, and it didn't take Rika long to start to wonder if Yoda really knew where he was going. They walked in silence for some time before Rika couldn't take it anymore.

"You know, Master, when I was in the Temple, there was a moment when I thought I could sense yours and Master Kenobi's presence. No, I take that back. It wasn't like it was your presence, but more like your shadows. I could tell that you had been there before, but weren't there at the time."

"Hmm. Other Jedi could you sense?" Yoda asked as he continued to blaze the trail through the dense humid jungle.

"I could sense others, yes, but I wasn't able to tell which ones they were. Maybe if I had more time to concentrate on it I could have. Funny thing is, I've never actually met Master Kenobi, but I could tell that it was him. Somehow I just got an image of him in my head."

"Ah, a rare ability you have. Sense Force echoes you can."

"Force echoes? I've never heard of that before."

"Yes, an ability that can be learned, but difficult it is. If not for the war, a Jedi Seeker you would have become," Yoda said, the last part with discernable regret in his voice.

"One of the ones who find Force sensitives and then brings them to the temple? Do they all use this ability?"

"Only a select few. Concentrate on a populated area, Seekers would. From a crowd, sense those sensitive to the Force they could." Their conversation reached a stagnant point, and they continued on for several minutes in silence again. But while they walked, Rika started to think about this ability that she apparently always had but just never put much thought into it.

"Do you think I could use this ability to find other Jedi who've survived?" Yoda paused, and looked up into the sky. From where they were, they could make out only a few stars through the dense upper foliage of the trees and the thick wispy clouds that covered Dagobah in a dreary grayness.

"Perhaps, if they wish to be found," was all Yoda said before he started to walk again. Rika sped up her walk and fell into step beside the Jedi Master.

"I think that's what I want to do. I know that there have to be others who survived Palpatine's treachery. Maybe if I can find enough of them, the Jedi can come back and fight the Sith and we can end their order once and for all."

"Hmm," was all Yoda would say. Rika noticed his apparent lack of enthusiasm.

"Do you think there's something wrong with that plan?" Yoda at first didn't respond, only continued to walk. When he did speak, he stopped and looked Rika in the eyes.

"A Jedi must do what they feel is right. Help other Jedi you could. But decide their own fates, they must. Choose to help those suffering under the Empire and face many dangers, or choose to go into hiding and wait. If they choose to fight the Empire, to take on the Sith, understand that a great task this will be. Never under estimate the powers of the dark side. Choose to fight, and you will also choose to bring suffering to those around you. Strong the Emperor is, strong is his Empire. An easy victory, it will not be. Great sacrifices will have to be made if the fight is to be won. Only the individual can make that choice. Hmm, a difficult choice indeed."

Yoda nodded gravely, and then continued on into the woods. Rika gazed off into the distance, not looking at anything in particular, and thought about the words that Yoda had said. Yoda was known for being one of the wisest Jedi ever, and his statement to her proved that. She snapped out of her semi-trance and then rushed to catch up. When she did, they continued on the rest of the way in silence.

As they continued, Rika had to do her best to keep from shivering. The air around her wasn't necessarily cold temperature wise, but something made the tiny hairs on her arms stand straight up and her lungs shudder when she took in a breath, as if someone had poured a glass of ice cold water down her back. At first she didn't know what could be causing this, but as they continued on, and the feeling got stronger, she suddenly realized that it was the dark side of the Force.

At the moment that she realized this, Yoda stopped walking, and pointed his stick towards a large mound of twisted earth. Rika looked at the strangely warped mound, and realized that there was an opening that led to the inside.

"What is that?" she said, barely loud enough for anyone to hear. Yoda narrowed his brow and frowned as he looked at the cave.

"A den, it is. Home of a creature bred from the dark side. In it you must go alone, unarmed."

"What lives in there?" Rika asked.

"A beast of ancient times, a tarentatek. Many years ago, hunted they were. But always they come back when strong the dark side becomes. This is what we heard back at the ship."

"Is it in there? Do you want me to fight it?" Yoda opened his eyes wide and laughed as he shook his head.

"No, foolish it would be to face a tarentatek alone, even more so unarmed. No, the beast is far from here. Lured it away I did while preparing you were." Rika nodded lightly, her mind racing back to a few hours before. While she was getting ready back at the _Destrier_, she remembered seeing Yoda meditating, but nothing more. Obviously he must have used the Force to somehow draw this creature away, far enough away that they could get this close to its den without it knowing.

Rika wasn't sure what she was going to encounter inside the cave, but she knew that Jedi were not supposed to allow fear to cloud their judgment. With a resolving deep breath, she unhooked her lightsaber and handed it to the Jedi Master before she stepped forward towards the cave entrance.

Rika paused momentarily at the entrance, and placed her hand on one of the gnarled tree roots above her and slowly ducked her head as she entered. The cave was dimly lit, but her Force instincts allowed her eyes to adjust rapidly. As she slowly walked in, her breathing became short and sharp. All around her, she could hear the sounds of reptiles slithering, insects chirping in an otherworldly manner, and her own feet as they crunched and grinded the loose debris that littered the cave floor.

The cave was so strong and rich with the dark side that Rika had to stop moving, and closed her eyes to collect herself. She lost focus on her surroundings as she mentally recounted the Jedi tenants in her head, and it was only after her second recounting that she noticed that all activity within the cave had gone deathly silent.

Rika's breathing became quicker, and she swallowed hard as she worked up the courage to open her eyes. She knew that fear was one of the tools of the dark side and a Jedi should know no fear, but at this moment it was hard for her to fully embrace that. At first, she opened only one eye, and after making sure that there was nothing in the cave with her, she opened the other. But just when she was about to let out a sigh of relief, the cave walls disappeared, and she was suddenly surrounded by dense white fog.

Instinctively she reached for her lightsaber, but her hand found nothing. She quickly turned around to run towards the exit, but only the infinite white void greeted her. Her breathing was now panicked and erratic; she had never been in a place like this before, at least not while awake.

She must have lived through this nightmare more times than she cared to recount, and seconds before she heard the sound, she knew that it was coming. From behind her, the ticking sound of metal cooling came to her ears, and before long, the burning smell of ozone filled her nostrils.

Instinct told her to run and scream, but her training told her to turn and face her nightmare. With the resolve of all her twenty years of training, she turned and began to walk towards the crashed gunship. As many times as she had wished to wake up at this point, something deep inside her told her she had to know what was inside the crashed hulk.

Rika stopped several feet away from the twisted broken side door, and willed whatever was inside to come out. What demonic embodiment would reach out its charred hand at her? Was it some ancient evil that the Sith had at one time worshiped, or was it something so dreadful that not even they would dare call upon it? Something rustled inside the hull, and Rika knew that she didn't have long to find out.

But whatever nightmare Rika had thought that it might be, whatever horror she had braced herself to encounter, what actually stepped out made all her resolve shatter, and only left the small frightened girl at Rika's core.

He seemed to easily step out of the wreckage, and stood to his full height, and placed his scale covered hands on his hips. Rika opened her mouth to speak, but was instead struck utterly mute by who she saw: her master, Amminius Mindar. At first, Mindar only looked at Rika with those old green eyes that she used to find comfort in, but now they were hollow, distant. After the initial shock started to wear off, Rika began to shake her head, and she finally found her voice.

"But you're-"

"SILENCE!" The visage of Master Mindar yelled with such ferocity and anger that it made Rika nearly fall to the ground. Now he towered over her, as if she were once again a youngling, his lips sneering at her, his eyes now red and alight with pure unadulterated hatred.

"You insolent, useless little whelp! I was a fool for thinking that you had the potential to be a Jedi! I should have left you to rot away like the other useless brigands in the Agricultural Corps! Your fear and cowardice condemned me to my fate; it wasn't troopers who killed me, it was you!"

Rika's eyes swelled with tears as all of her inner most fears were spoken by the specter of her Master. Many times, when she would fail at one task or another during her years of training with Mindar, she wondered if he felt that he should have chosen another pupil to be his Padawan. And now, this apparition was confirming her inner most fears. Rika shook her head, trying to regain control, but the deep seated hatred that was literally pouring out of the demon made it difficult for her to think of anything other than fear.

"You left me to die! You could have stayed, fought off the troopers and taken me to a medic! But instead, you thought of only yourself, and ran like a lost child!" Rika searched desperately within herself, and deep beneath the self doubt and guilt that made a rigid shell around her true self, she found her inner light, that portion of herself that once she found, knew that this was the Rika Tymor that the _real_ Amminius Mindar and Yoda nurtured, the Rika Tymor that Randal Sarn believed in, the Rika Tymor that she herself knew was her true self.

With renewed energy drawn from the light side of the Force, Rika stood tall, and looked the menacing visage of Mindar in his hate filled eyes, and spoke with a renewed level of strength.

"No, I didn't leave you to die. I wanted to stay, to fight by your side, but it was you that told me my path lay elsewhere. I listened to the Force; I listened to you and left. I was wrong to blame myself for your death; I had nothing to do with it. I wasn't responsible, and I'm not going to blame myself any longer." The menacing visage of Mindar drew back and sneered his reptilian lip up in disgust, but without muttering another discouraging word, the specter simply faded away.

Rika let out a long sigh, and with it went away the surreal world of white and the unseen weight that she had unknowingly been carrying on her shoulders since Guannk. Around her, the cold oppressive feel of the dark side seemed to fade away, and she suddenly welcomed the long missed sensation of the Force flooding into her like a massive tidal wave, stronger now than it had ever been before. With a large smile on her face, she turned and started to head out towards the entrance to the cave to tell Master Yoda about her success.

But before she reached the entrance, she heard the all too familiar sound of her lightsaber igniting, and the ferocious roar of a beast bred in the very depths of hell itself.


	14. Chapter 14

Chapter 14 One With the Force

Rika stumbled as she quickly tried to climb out of the cave, but the vicious sounds of her lightsaber swinging at speeds she never thought possible and the ground shaking movements and roars of the tarentatek made her panic. When she finally emerged from the cave entrance, she stood in shock for a moment and watched the epic battle happen in front of her.

The tarentatek was massive, nearly four meters tall, and had large menacingly sharp spines that protruded from its back. The arms of the fell beast were as large as a tree trunk, but the creature was able to swing them with ease. The eyes of the monster were a deep red, and the two large tusks that protruded from the sides of its face dripped with pungent saliva.

Master Yoda was a barely visible blur, launching himself high into the air as he jumped from one branch to the other, swinging the blue lightsaber at the tarentatek whenever the opportunity presented itself. The blade was longer than Yoda was tall, so it gave him an odd look as if he were fighting with a long spear, but the size of the blade didn't appear to handicap him in the least.

But as Yoda's moves were fast and nimble, the tarentatek was able to keep up, and though many of the attacks from the blade found their mark, the tough hide of the evil creature prevented the blade from penetrating further than the surface.

Rika snapped out of her moment of shock and tried to think of something to do to help Master Yoda fight this beast. She had no weapon on her, the blaster that Randal had given her was lying peacefully back on her bunk on the _Destrier_, which was going to do her no good. The only thing she had was the Force, which she knew was a powerful weapon if it had to be.

She focused on the Force, and with a sudden motion of her throwing her hands out towards the tarentatek, she channeled the Force into a mighty blow. As the Force-induced shockwave barreled on, limbs of trees and loose debris on the ground lifted up and went flying with a ferocity that shocked Rika. She had no idea that she held this level of control over the Force. But as powerful as the shockwave was, the impact on the tarentatek was only enough to make it slightly sway forward when it hit it fully in the back.

The beast took its focus away from the diminutive Jedi Master and turned to look at whatever had tried to attack it. When it saw Rika, it roared fiercely and charged. Rika only had a moment's notice before the beast would be upon her, so she jumped clear of its massive clawed hand, if that was what it could be called, and dove behind a large moss covered boulder. The beast was readying another attack, but before it could unleash it, Yoda jumped onto the creature's back, and was slashing the top of its thick boned head. The tarentatek tried to fight the Jedi off of his back, but Yoda held onto the thick black spines and continued his assault.

Rika stood from her makeshift sanctuary, and tried to catch her breath. This creature was much too large and strong for anything that they could even try to do to it with only one weapon between them. And while she had the Force as her ally, it wasn't proving to be very effective against a creature bred from the dark side. But if she couldn't use the Force against the beast outright, she could use it in other ways.

She stood back from the massive moss covered boulder and took in a deep breath as she let the Force pour into her. With both hands held out towards the massive rock, she lifted the boulder off of the ground, and once she was certain that it was in her control, she hurled it towards the beast. Yoda looked up in time to see the enormous projectile flying towards him, and he jumped off of the monster's back and landed on a high limb. The tarentatek must have been able to sense the boulder's movement through the Force, because it turned just in time to catch it square in the chest.

The momentum of the boulder carried the abomination back ten meters before it crashed onto the swamp floor, the large rock now on top of the thing. For a moment, everything was silent except for the heavy breathing of both of the Jedi, and the constant thrumming hum of the lightsaber. But just when it seemed that everything was going to be all right, the tarentatek stirred, and began to try to push the boulder off.

Yoda acted quickly, and after somersaulting off of the tree limb, he crashed down hard on the beast's head, the blazing lightsaber blade facing down. With a sickening crunching sound and a smell like burnt rotting flesh, the blade penetrated the thick skull of the creature and came out on the other side. The tarentatek only stirred for another second, and then released its evil spirit unto the netherworld.

Yoda pulled the blade out of the skull, and then deactivated it. Rika walked up to him, all the while keeping her eyes on the dead creature, just in case it decided to come back again. Yoda let out a long weary sigh, and called his gimer stick back to him.

As the two stood catching their breath in the silence, Yoda handed the lightsaber back to Rika.

"Construct a new one, I must," Yoda said with obvious fatigue in his voice. Rika nodded slightly and hooked her lightsaber back onto her belt. After what seemed like an eternity, Yoda looked up and lightly smiled.

"Successful you were in the cave, hmm?"

"Yes, yes I was," was all Rika could muster. Yoda nodded, and without saying another word, began to lead them back through the jungle back to the waiting ship.

BREAK

A few hours after they returned to the _Destrier_, Randal and Geefive had finished their repairs to the hyperdrive and Rika helped them raise it back into the hull of the ship, this time with little to no effort on her part. Geefive took the opportunity to check over a few of the ship's hydraulic actuators, one of many components of a starship which no matter how advanced galactic technology became, always seemed to have to require a close eye to keep them functioning properly.

Randal wasn't sure what sort of training Yoda had put Rika through, but it seemed to have done the trick. It also must have been very strenuous judging by the condition that both of the two were now in.

After Geefive was done doing his usual routine maintenance survey, he twittered his satisfaction in both the ship's condition and the fact that they could get off of this humid mud hole of a planet. Randal nodded to the little droid, and then walked over to where Yoda and Rika were having a discussion about whatever it was that Jedi talked about. The two looked up when Randal approached and stopped their conversation.

"The _Destrier_'s all ready to go; we can leave whenever you're ready." Rika nodded, and without saying anything, the two Jedi stood and walked towards the entry ramp of the ship. Randal could tell by Rika's body language that there was something she wanted to ask the wise old Jedi Master, so he took the unspoken queue and entered the ship to give her some privacy and went to the cockpit to start the warm up of the engines.

Rika stepped onto the ramp and stopped for a moment. Now that the Force fully flowed through her once again, she didn't need to turn around to see that the diminutive Jedi Master had stopped several meters away from the ramp. She could tell that he had no intention of going with them. Rika turned to Yoda and asked the question that was on her mind.

"Master, if, no, _when_ I find other Jedi, and if we decide to fight the Empire, will you lead us once again?"

Yoda narrowed his brow and looked up into the murky sky above before he shook his head and spoke.

"No; Grand Master of the Jedi, I no longer am. Blind was I, stubborn, yes. Too stubborn was I to see the happenings around us. Foolish was I to think fighting an old enemy I was. Evolved, the Sith have, while the Jedi grew stagnant. Presumptive, I was. No, here I will remain, in exile." Yoda then let out a sigh, and looked Rika in the eye. Rika was surprised to see the raw emotion there; Yoda meant everything he said and in his eyes she could see that he bore the entire weight of everything that had transpired on his shoulders, as if it was his fault, and his fault alone that the Sith had won, and the Jedi were all but dead.

Rika wanted to say something, to reassure him that it wasn't his fault, but as much as she tried, she couldn't deny the fact that Yoda _was _the one who had chosen the path of all Jedi for the past several centuries, and if there was any one person to blame, it was him. After an awkward silent moment, Rika slowly nodded and then started to turn towards the inside of the ship, but Yoda spoke and caught her mid turn.

"Remember your training. Save you it can, and those around you. Be mindful of your surroundings, agents of the Empire anywhere can be. Bring harm to you they can, or worse. If caught you are, used you could be to find others. Tortured you would be, break your resolve, and to the dark side they will force you. Dark times these are," with these last words, Yoda lowered his head and shook his head solemnly, his ears drooping as well.

"I will, Master. I'll remember everything you've ever taught me, and I'll help those who need help, just as we were always meant to do." Yoda looked up and nodded.

"May the Force be with you, young Tymor."

"May the Force be with you, Master Yoda."

With that final saying of the ancient farewell, Rika turned and entered the _Destrier_, moving without thinking towards the cockpit.

When she sat in the copilot's chair, Randal looked at her from the corner of his eye and could see that she was again coming to grips that she was alone. Randal was used to being alone; he always was for the majority of his life. Sure, he had friends, and he was in large company when he spent his brief stent in the Judicial Forces, but he was used to only having a small number of others around him. But for Rika, he knew the idea was foreign and new to her. Her entire life, she had grown up in that temple, always surrounded by others like her. Randal had no idea how many Jedi there were, or how many were in the temple at any given time, but he was sure it was a much larger number than anything she would experience from here on out. It must be hard to go from being a part of such a large community to being nearly on your own over night, and not wholly of your own choosing.

"Ready to go?" he asked nonchalantly.

"Yes, let's go," she said in a detached way. Randal nodded, and with a lurching motion, the _Destrier_ lifted off of the swampy ground, and took off for the sky. Watching from the ground, Yoda looked up at the blinding blue flare of the engines and let out a sigh before he turned and headed back towards his E3 lifeboat, where nearby he was starting to build a small but comfortable home.

As the _Destrier_ left the atmosphere, Randal waited for the navicomputer to give the green light, and then engaged the hyperdrive. After a lurch of inertia, the ship rocketed away. Randal checked the navicomputer and estimated how long he had before they would reach their destination. Rika continued to sit in her seat with the same contemplative expression on her face. After he was done checking over the status indicators, he leaned back and let out a tired sigh.

"Well, everything looks good. We should reach D'onva in about eight hours."

"Good," Rika said as she blinked a few times, ending the semi trance she was in. She stood from her seat and stretched her arms. "I'm going to take a nice long shower."

Several minutes later, after Rika had turned off the emitters for the sonic shower, she put a rather large sized robe on that she found in the closet of her cabin. Geefive had taken her dirty clothes and was processing them in the small laundry room that was in the aft end of the ship. Though she had no idea what the little droid had beeped at her, she knew that it wouldn't take long for her clothes to be cleaned in the ultra sonic washing machine.

She stepped out of the refresher and walked to the main cabin, where Randal was just placing two bowls of steaming ful'ka noodles on the table. Randal flopped down onto the padded acceleration couch and then motioned to the other bowl with his fork.

"I didn't know if you'd be hungry, but I made you some anyways." Rika nodded her thanks and took a seat opposite him. When she sat down, she suddenly became aware of just how loose and somewhat revealing the robe was, so she pulled it closer to her body. Oddly enough, she had never considered herself to be cautious of her modesty before, but when everyone was wearing the same outfit, it never really mattered. But as they sat and ate, she suddenly realized that she knew nothing about the man whom she had come to trust with her life at the other side of the table. That thought would normally have alarmed her, but either the situation that she found herself in had changed her that much, or she found something about him to be disarming and trustworthy. As she thought about that, she found that her cheeks were now getting warm, which secretly embarrassed her.

"Is it too hot?" Randal asked as he looked up from his own bowl. Rika silently commanded her own blushing cheeks to subside and lightly blew over the bowl.

"A little, but its good." Rika took the opportunity to start a conversation and divert this unsettling train of thought. "So, were you always a freighter pilot?" she asked as she took in a mouthful of the spicy noodles. Randal shook his head and waited until he was done chewing before he answered.

"No, but ever since I was a kid I knew I wanted to be on a ship piloting the stars. My parents wanted me to follow the family tradition like my older brother did and become an officer in the military, but when I turned eighteen I applied at the Judicial Forces pilot training academy in Coronet City instead."

"You were in the Judicial Forces?" Rika asked.

"Yeah, for a little while anyway. When I was twenty three I got kicked out for borrowing a cruiser, among other things."

"You _borrowed_ a cruiser? You mean you stole one, right?"

"I wouldn't say I stole it, I brought it back in mostly one piece. No, Captain Lockhart was more mad about _who_ I went joy riding with." Rika raised one of her brows in confusion about what Randal was talking about. "His daughter," Randal explained. Rika let out an understanding sound as she nodded her head. Jedi were forbidden to have attachment, but she could still understand why a father wouldn't want his daughter to go gallivanting around with a rogue like Randal.

"Well, after I got the boot from them, I worked for Czerka Arms as a freighter pilot for awhile, then got lucky and was able to buy the _Destrier_. Since then I've been my own boss. What about you? How young were you when you joined the Jedi?" Rika shrugged her shoulders as she finished her noodles.

"Most Jedi are taken when they're very young. I came to the Temple when I was about 6 months old, or so I was told. The earliest thing I can remember was being in the Temple." Randal nodded lightly, but his brow furrowed as he cocked one of his eyebrows.

"They took you when you were that young? I always figured that they took in recruits when they were around five or so. How'd they know you wanted to be a Jedi? You didn't even have a choice." Rika opened her mouth to defend her way of life, but when faced with it directly, she found it difficult to do so.

"Well, yes, there wasn't a choice for me. But, knowing now that if I would have remained on Ryloth I probably would have been sold into slavery, or worse, I'm glad I was taken."

"Well, I guess so. I'm gonna jump in the shower and then get some sleep before we get to D'onva. Working on that hyperdrive really wore me out." Rika nodded, and after Randal stood from the table, she took her empty bowl and rinsed it out in the small galley that was on the other side of the acceleration couch. As she walked into her cabin, she could hear the somewhat low resonating sound of the sonic emitters coming from the refresher. When she entered her cabin, she noticed that Geefive had placed her now clean clothes on her bunk. She put her clothes back on, and laid down on the firm pad. She hadn't been able to sleep and completely enjoy the rest for some time, but once she closed her eyes, she entered a peacefully calm world filled with only pleasant thoughts, no longer haunted by the nightmares that had gripped her in nights before.


	15. Chapter 15

Chapter 15 Culmination

_Porlut Sector, D'onva System, Outer Rim_

Morthiath switched the _Black Death_'s main power systems back online for another brief moment so the air scrubbers could filter the air inside the cabin. As the scrubbers came online, and emitted a low humming sound, he let out an annoyed breath through his nose. He had been waiting, floating aimlessly in the vacuum of space, hidden between the massive amounts of debris for what seemed like an eternity.

In the amount of time that he waited here, he replayed the chase through Coruscant over and over in his head, and thought of what he should have done differently. As he contemplated this, he kept visually scanning what surrounded his ship, though any living beings visual range was limited in the vastness of space. His scanners and sensors were still online, but they only showed minor blips from the lifeless hulks of durasteel that now made up this no man's land.

What his scanners didn't show was the _Rapture_ doing the same thing that he was doing on the far side of the debris field. Captain Homanlif paced the bridge, his hands behind his back. When they had found a decent spot for the _Rapture_ to lie in wait, Homanlif sent a message to Admiral Madoon giving him the location and his theory as to why the suspect was coming here. He hadn't heard a reply, but he was confident that this was the sort of evidence that the Admiral wanted. He wasn't sure where this Captain Sarn was at, but he was confident that he would arrive, and then he would claim his victory.

And oblivious to either of these two threats, Randal Sarn pushed the hyperdrive lever forward, and the _Destrier_ came out of hyperspace to the fate that waited.

Randal continued to check over the instruments and scanner readings and had yet to actually look up at the planet of D'onva. As he noted that all of the scopes were green, he finally noticed that Rika was rigid, and staring blankly with wide eyes at the view outside. He was about to ask what got her worked up when he looked forward and suddenly realized what was making her stare.

"Fierfek…" Randal sighed as he took in the massive sight. The planet of D'onva itself was unremarkable, a blue and brown sphere that would have been hard to pick out of a lineup of similar planets in a galactic atlas, but the massive graveyard was both ominous and awe-inspiring to look at.

The field stretched for nearly 100 kilometers at its widest point, and was about twenty kilometers at its deepest. Chunks of capital ships, ranging in size from nuts and bolts up to full derelict ships drifted aimlessly with an eerie grace. What disturbed Randal the most about it was the lack of lights; it proved that every ship was now just a lifeless floating hulk, as cold and as dead as anything in the galaxy.

Randal eventually let out a sigh as he shook his head, and then pushed the throttle slightly forward and maneuvered the _Destrier_ into a direct path for the debris field. Rika took in a deep chilling breath, and turned to speak with Randal, but she kept her eyes on the lifeless debris as if at any moment one of the ships would come to life and begin to fire on them.

"Are you actually heading into that?" she asked incredulously.

"Yeah, it would take us a lot longer to fly around it, and the quicker we can unload this cargo, the quicker we can get out of this system. Don't worry, there's nothing in there that'll do us any harm." The last part of his statement seemed to be more for his own benefit than for hers.

The next several minutes passed by with an uneasy quiet. Randal kept one hand on the control yoke and the other on the throttle, adjusting the _Destrier_'s speed as he saw fit. Rika looked out the viewport at the large pieces of debris that floated passed, all the while keeping an uneasy look on her face.

As she looked out, she stretched out with the Force, and was glad that it answered to her in the full power that she remembered. Something wasn't right here, but what it was exactly she couldn't tell. The feeling of uneasiness became too unbearable for her, so she voiced her thoughts.

"I've got a bad feeling about this."

"Relax, there's nothing in here moving or alive besides us."

"That's what I'm worried about. Don't you think there would be scavengers or something going through these wrecks?"

"Yeah, you'd think," Randal took his eyes off of the path directly ahead of him and looked around at the larger more intact debris. "Some of this stuff is junk, but there's bound to be-"

_Whamm!_

The _Destrier_ shook violently and several of the warning lights flashed with alarm. Randal let out an impolite curse and quickly checked the rear viewscreen, and growled when he saw the all too familiar shape of a KDY Interceptor racing up behind him with both laser cannons firing.

Randal quickly pushed the throttle forward and adjusted the rear deflector shields. Rika looked at the rear viewscreen and shook her head, making her lekku swing back and forth.

"What's he doing here?!?" she yelled.

"No idea, but get to the top turret. He's not taking us without a fight!" As Rika ran out of the cockpit, Randal quickly scanned the area of the debris field and mentally plotted a course through.

A green status light flickered on the control board to let him know that Rika was in the turret and ready to fire. Randal took in a deep breath and let it out with a smirk on his face.

"All right, you filthy Hutt slime, you want a fight, you got one!"

With a burst of speed, the _Destrier_ rocketed forward, her dorsal turret blasting away at the pursuing ship, which was struggling to keep up, but also had both of its cannons letting loose a barrage of death. Randal swung the _Destrier_ around a piece of debris on the left, and then swung the ship around quickly to the right to pass another chunk of a ship. As Randal took the risk of looking at the rear viewscreen, he smirked more widely at seeing that the slalom maneuvers he was doing was slowing the Interceptor down. He remembered hearing some space jockeys talking one time in a bar that those Interceptors flew like a mynock out of hell in a straight line, but they weren't the best at maneuvering tight turns.

Morthiath sneered widely as he wrestled with the control yoke of his ship, trying to keep up with the tight maneuvers that his prey was doing. Sarn knew full well what his KDY Interceptor was capable of, and what its weaknesses were. His prey leveled out for a moment, and Morthiath made the quick decision that had made him catch his targets on several occasions. He knew that he needed more speed to catch up and deliver the killing blow, and since his prey was directly ahead of him, he dropped all power to his rear shields and distributed it to his engines, giving him an extra ten percent to his speed output. His sneer turned to a grin as he started to catch up.

Randal leveled the _Destrier_ out and allowed the Interceptor a chance to regain some ground before he violently rolled the ship to starboard and dove straight down at a 90 degree angle from his original heading. He grimaced as the g-forces pushed him into his chair; the inertial compensators were set at Randal's usual setting of 95 percent, which was normally fine, but if he had known that he would be putting his ship through maneuvers that were more fitting for a fighter he would have turned them up, though if the _Destrier_ complained, she didn't give any signs of it.

Morthiath let out a string of curses in over a dozen languages as he had to cut his speed down before he could follow his prey into the dive. With a quick and overly satisfying motion, Morthiath flipped the toggle switch to deliver his killing blow.

From the rear viewscreen, Randal could see that the Interceptor hadn't anticipated that move, and had to slow down before it could turn and keep up. But now, it looked as if the Zabrak bounty killer was tired of these games, because the computer started to point out two panels on the Interceptor that were opening up: missile bay doors.

Randal again pushed the throttle forward, knowing that this time the Interceptor would be launching full on warheads at him, not tracking beacons like before. He wasn't sure how well Corellian engineered hulls would stand up to multiple hits from concussion missiles, but he certainly didn't want to find out firsthand.

Morthiath let out a devilishly evil laugh as he uncovered the safety to fire the missiles, and satisfyingly pressed the trigger, letting loose two missiles of impending doom.

As he searched for something, anything that he could use to stop incoming missiles from finding their mark, a warning klaxon sounded, letting him know that he now had two missiles incoming. Randal cursed to himself as he saw what he was looking for, a lifeless hulk that had once been a Techno-Union battlecruiser, but it was too far away, there wouldn't be enough time for him to race their before the missiles found their mark.

Randal pushed the throttle as far as it would go, and the _Destrier_ roared forward, but the distance counter from the missiles in the rear viewscreen continued to count down. The missiles continued to gain on them, but Randal continued to try and make it to the battlecruiser. Randal could see that Rika was trying to hit the incoming missiles with her turret, but the targets were just too small. But when the missiles were within 50 meters, one of them suddenly veered to its left and struck the other missile, sending them both to oblivion in a massive ball of flame.

"Did you do that?!?" Randal said into the microphone.

"Yes, it's a trick I picked up in the war. Just a little nudge from the Force," Rika said before she brought her turret back onto the Interceptor and opened fire again. Randal lightly shook his head to himself and wondered what other tricks she had up her sleeve.

"Okay, get ready to turn your turret around and fire forward," Randal said as he brought the ventral turret's power online.

"Forward? But he's behind us!"

"Trust me!" Randal said as he lined up the ventral turret's holographic crosshairs on the battlecruiser's fuel cell. With a calm demeanor that showed his skills at piloting, Randal kept one hand on the control yoke and a thumb on the trigger button, and his other hand on the throttle. Behind him, the Interceptor was now close, just where Randal wanted him.

"Now!" Randal yelled. Quickly, as if it were all one move, Randal fired the ventral turret, hitting the fuel cell dead on, which ignited in a brilliant ball of flame. Once the explosion started, he pulled the throttle back just enough and lightly dove the _Destrier_ down, but still entered the largely growing ball of flame.

Morthiath closed the gap between himself and his prey, firing madly away with his twin laser cannons. How in the universe had his missiles been deflected? Could Jedi do such a thing? It would be a pity that he wouldn't be able to interrogate the Jedi himself, because he doubted anything would be left of her when he was done obliterating the Corellian freighter. As he pursued his prey, he saw its cannons fire at a fuel cell, erupting it into a great explosion. Morthiath pulled back on his throttle, not allowing himself to fall for that trick again. Before he lost sight of the freighter, he noticed it dive down. Morthiath sneered in victory as he knew Sarn had dove down into the blaze and would continue to dive. At the speed that it was traveling, their arc would be wide, but at his current speed, Morthiath knew that he could dive down and intercept his target by making a tighter dive. After that, it would be child's play to finally bring victory to his hunt.

The last glimpse Randal got of the rear viewscreen showed him just what he wanted to see, the Interceptor diving down, trying to keep up with what he thought was Randal's next move. But instead, Randal pulled up once he cleared the ball of flame, skimming the hull of the battlecruiser by only a few meters while inverted, and looped back around coming full circle. When he finished the loop, he pushed the throttle to full and raced towards his target, the Interceptor, which was now directly in front of him.

Morthiath raced well underneath the flaming ball of fuel, but when he passed it up, instead of seeing his target now firmly in his sights, he found nothing. But before he could figure out what had happened, an alarm sounded, and showed him that instead of being in front of him, his prey was now directly behind him, firing on his unshielded rear! Morthiath let out a blood curdling yell in pure anger at being outsmarted by a simple smuggler.

He caught the bounty killer by surprise, and the few seconds that that afforded him was all he needed. Both he and Rika opened fire and peppered the Interceptor with deadly blaster fire. The Interceptor tried to evade the incoming fire, but any moves it made Randal easily followed. With an iridescent orange burst with every impacting blast, the Interceptor's armored hull began to fall apart, and their concentrated turret fire ignited the ship's port side engine.

While having a long burning trail of fuel in its wake, the Interceptor spiraled out of control, and then erupted into a blinding explosion. Randal let out a cheer of victory and he jumped up in his seat. Soon, Rika was back in the cockpit and together they celebrated besting the mercenary. But their victory was short lived.

Another warning klaxon sounded, and when Randal hit a key to see what it was, they saw the large triangular shape of an Acclamator heading straight for them at top speed.

"Does this party ever end!?!" Randal said as he jumped back into his seat and pulled up on the _Destrier_'s control yoke. Once the _Destrier_ had made a 180 degree turn, he pushed the throttle to full, and with a sudden blast from the engines, she rushed back into the depths of the debris field. As if to let them know that they were being followed, several laser blasts began to pass by the _Destrier_ at distances that were too close for comfort. Randal cursed under his breath as one of the blasts seared too close for comfort, causing the _Destrier_'s shields to flare and sizzle.

"I don't know how we're going to get out of this one," he said as he maneuvered by a chunk of a Techno Union battleship's fuel cell. Rika looked frantically around the debris field as she searched her mind for an answer, but was coming up blank. She knew that there was no way they could take the Acclamator on in a fight, and it was going to be difficult to outrun a ship that was designed for speedy pursuits.

As she thought this, Randal came to the same conclusion. "There's no way I'm gonna be able to outrun that thing, but I can fly circles around that big hunk of junk." Without warning, Randal powered down the throttle just enough to turn the _Destrier_ hard to starboard, and rocketed behind a lifeless hulk that had once been a _Bulwark_-Class, putting the lifeless ship between them and the Acclamator.

In response, the Acclamator opened fire with its quad turbolaser cannons, tearing the defenseless hulk to shreds. But it was a fruitless effort. By the time the turbolaser cannons could rip through the blocking ship, Randal had pushed the throttle back to full and was racing back the way they had came, leaving the Acclamator heading in the completely opposite direction. It would take some time before the much larger vessel could slow down and turn around to pursue them again.

"Well that bought us some time, but not much. I don't know how we're going to get down to the surface to unload this cargo. If only there was some way we could cripple that ship," Randal said as he kept an eye on the rear viewscreen, watching the form of the Acclamator slow and cumbersomely try to turn around. Rika sat forward in her co-pilot's chair and let a wide grin cross her face.

"Maybe there is. Geefive can slice into a ship's central control computer, right?" Geefive twittered a positive sounding response from his station behind her, and Randal nodded but with a confused look on his face.

"Yeah, what do you have in mind?" Rika excitedly pointed outwards to a ship that lay slightly off of their port side.

"There! That Lucrehulk's a central command ship, you can tell by the number of antenna arrays. This entire fleet must have been manned by droids and were slaved to that control ship. If Geefive can reactivate the computer, it should paint the Acclamator as a hostile and attack!" Randal turned fully away from the forward view and gave Rika a look of concern. She looked back at him, but she couldn't tell if he thought she had gone crazy or had a death wish, or both.

"That's absolutely crazy!" He then curled the corner of his mouth up in a maniacal grin. "But it's crazy enough to just work." Randal dove the _Destrier_ to port and raced towards the open hangar bay of the eerily lifeless Lucrehulk.

* * *

All he could hear inside his vacuum sealed suit was his own ragged anger-fed breathing. Morthiath had not only been outsmarted by a simple smuggler, but had also had his ship blown out from up under him. If it wasn't for his quick reflexes, he would never have been able to launch his lifeboat, which was also the cockpit, in time. Now, with only simple directional thrusters, he had all but given up on his hunt. But as fate would have it, he saw the same Corellian freighter heading towards a nearly intact Confederate Battleship and enter its landing bay. With a sneer of revenge, he engaged his thrusters and rocketed towards the open landing bay.

* * *

Randal was glad to see that the reactor was still up and running, evident by the working magnetic field they passed through as they entered the hangar bay. He quickly slowed the _Destrier_ down and engaged her running lamps as he navigated through the long curved hangar bay that held the numerous landing craft and droid starfighters that now sat powered down. Once they reached the end of the hangar bay, Randal dropped the landing gear and set the _Destrier_ down with a slightly jarring motion. Though he powered down the engines to idle, he left them running, not knowing just how quickly he was going to have to get out of here.

Randal and Rika made their way to the entry ramp, and after it was down, they stepped into the hangar bay, oddly void of any sound besides the idle thrumming coming from the _Destrier_'s engines.

"How long until that Acclamator catches up with us?" Rika asked.

"I wouldn't guess that long, the last I saw it had fully turned around and was putting the heat on. I'd say we have a few minutes at best."

"Well, we'd better find the bridge so we can-" Rika only barely was able to pull back before the blaster bolt flew past her head, missing so closely that she could feel the heat. Randal instantly had his blaster in his hand, and stared at the source of the shot. He let out a loud curse as he saw none other than the bounty hunter Morthiath, running at them with his blaster firing, wearing a vacuum-sealed space suit.

"This guy won't take the hint and die!" Randal yelled as he fired twice and pushed Rika out of the way. The shots came close to hitting Morthiath, who stopped his running and took cover behind one of the many plasteel crates. Randal fired another shot, and then took refuge behind one of the landing gear of the _Destrier_.

Geefive strode out haphazardly into the firefight, and quickly made his way to the large bulkhead where a computer access terminal was positioned. With a quick uplink into the system, which was limited to only this sector of the hangar, he engaged the nearest set of blast doors which quickly closed between them and the bounty hunter, but also cut them off from their only escape route.

Randal quickly holstered his blaster and then motioned for Rika to follow. "Come on, that'll only buy us a little time. Let's find the bridge and turn this hulk on." Together they took off in a run down the only corridor available, with Geefive wheeling quickly behind them.

Morthiath stepped away from his cover and looked the large blast door over once before he holstered his blaster. He knew he wasn't going to be able to get passed this, at least not easily. Instead, he would have to find another way to kill his prey, so he headed off down the nearest corridor.

As Randal and Rika ran down the corridor, Geefive caught up and twittered an excited tone. "What?" Randal said as he slowed. Geefive again made an excited set of sounds in response, and Randal nodded with a resounding sigh. Rika looked at Randal for an explanation and he explained what the droid had said as Geefive rolled passed them and took the lead.

"He said he downloaded a schematic of the ship and knows how to get to the bridge."

"But?" Rika asked as she knew that the little droid had to have said something else to make Randal sigh the way he did.

"But while he was slicing the system, he set of some sort of trigger or an alarm, and the ship's security protocols kicked in. He's not sure, but he thinks we might have battle droids coming after us." Rika was about to give her own thoughts on this new found development, but instead, an instinctive feeling that came to her through the Force made her reach for her lightsaber and she barely had enough time to activate the blue shining blade before the first blaster bolt rang out. From a hydraulic side door that had swung open moments before they reached it, a squadron of patrolling battle droids poured out, opening fire on the intruders.

"Security breach! Blast them!" the yellow shouldered battle droid called out. He was answered by ten of the other droids, echoing the affirmative twice in their mechanized speech. Rika deflected the first of their blaster shots back at the shooter, but soon the corridor was filled with the blasts.

Rika instinctively parried the blasts with calm precision, while Randal ducked behind what little cover the corridor offered and fired his powerful blaster, hitting droid by droid square in their metal chests. Geefive had activated his twin blasters and was firing rapidly, taking the droids by surprise since their programming didn't recognize him as a threat until it was too late.

Within a matter of seconds, the droid squad was little more than smoking rubble on the deck. "Let's get a move on, and hopefully avoid any more of these tin targets," Randal said as he replaced his blaster's power pack and checked the charge setting. Rika nodded and again the three took off towards the nearest turbolift that would take them to the bridge.

* * *

Captain Homanlif watched the screens as they neared the Lucrehulk where his scanner teams had said the small freighter had taken refuge. Homanlif didn't show it, but he was fighting back a sense of uneasiness at being so close to a battleship that he had been fighting against for the past three years. In all of that time, he'd never gotten this close to one before. As a precaution, he had ordered the shields to be brought up to full power.

Now that they had the freighter and its rebel crew cornered, he wondered what he should do next. He could open fire and destroy the defenseless hulk, but killing Sarn wouldn't get him anywhere with Admiral Madoon's secret orders. He could also try docking with the ship (the _Rapture _didn't have any transports) and send some troops over to capture them, but getting any closer to the old enemy vessel was the last thing he wanted to do. As he watched the holoscreens display the different angles of the Lucrehulk, he decided that he would place his ship directly ahead of the battleship, and try hailing the rebels before taking more drastic action.

* * *

The turbolift doors opened with a swift and silent motion, and Randal quickly moved his blaster over the bridge before he holstered his weapon and stepped in. Rika clipped her lightsaber to her belt and then stepped towards one of the control panels where a blue light was flashing. Below the light was a switch, so after figuring it wouldn't hurt to flip it, she did and the small grainy holo image of Captain Homanlif appeared standing on the panel.

"Attention Insurrectionist agents, this is Captain Homanlif of the _Rapture_. You have nowhere else to run, and that lifeless hulk can only hide you for so long. You have one minute to affect your surrender before we open fire." With that, the hologram disappeared.

"Good, I hate long waits. Geefive, plug into the computer and see if you can bring the shields online before they start firing," Randal said as he motioned towards the computer access terminal. Geefive twittered a positive, if even over confident sounding response, and jacked into the ship's main computer.

For a tensely quiet twenty seconds, the only sound was that of Geefive spinning his access jack as he processed the data and tried to work around the computer's security features. Suddenly without warning, an alarm started to sound and the lights inside the bridge began to pulse an urgent red.

"What was that?!?" Rika asked as she instinctively activated her lightsaber. Geefive twittered an annoyed sounding response and continued to probe the computer.

"Great, he tripped one of the security walls. How much longer until you get control of this thing?" Randal asked. Geefive sounded an irritated quick response, and Randal was about to argue back, but the unwelcome sound of a hydraulic blast door opening made him turn around. Standing in the doorway was another squad of battle droids.

"There they are, blast them!"

"Roger, roger!"

Randal fired off a quick shot before he dove behind one of the bridge terminals for cover. Rika stood her ground, deflecting blaster shot after blaster shot back at their attackers. Randal didn't chance looking over his cover, but just fired over his head blindly in the direction of the droids. Then, as if the situation couldn't get any worse, another blast door on the opposite side of the bridge opened up, revealing another squad of battle droids.

"I swear, if we make it out of here alive, I'm taking a nice long vacation!" Randal said as he pointed his blaster at the new comers and fired wildly into their ranks.

Rika took the initiative and jumped straight into the first squad of droids, her lightsaber blazing with brutal efficiency as she sliced through the droids until there was nothing left. But as if the Force had a twisted sense of humor, she was rewarded by the ominous rolling sound of a group of destroyer droids. The three droids came to a uniform stop, then transitioned into their combat stance and engaged their energy shields. Rika knew she couldn't stand toe to toe with them, so she fell back and crouched next to Randal, who had just finished off the second squad, but was greeted with a unit of B2 super battle droids. He reloaded his blaster with his last charge pack and together he and Rika shared a look of knowing that this could be their final moments being alive.

With a firm nod, they both jumped up from their cover and were about to attack when suddenly the droids shut down from their combat programming and went into standby. Randal waited a moment before he cocked his eyebrow and shrugged his shoulders in confusion.

"What happened?"

Geefive turned his dome around and strung out a long series of beeps and tones then went back to his work. Randal smirked, then holstered his weapon. Before Rika deactivated her saber, she waited for the explanation with a look on her face that showed she was getting tired of having to always wait for Randal to explain what the droid had said.

"He was able to convince the computer that we weren't security threats, so the droids just went into standby mode. Pretty nice trick if you ask me." Rika nodded and let out a long breath as she turned her lightsaber off and again clipped it to her belt. Randal's smirk stayed on his face long enough for him to turn back around and face the main viewport, then it fell away instantly.

"Fierfek," was all he could say. Rika turned around so quickly to see what he was cursing about that her lekku flew over her shoulder and landed on her breast. When she saw what he had seen, her eyes opened wide and her mouth dropped low. Now, instead of there just being the Acclamator, there was also a Venator Star Destroyer.


	16. Chapter 16

Chapter 16 End Game

"You have one minute to affect your surrender before we open fire," Captain Homanlif said and then made a motion with his head for the communications officer to kill the holoprojection. Homanlif smiled lightly to himself as he pictured the pair of terrorists running around as their impending doom counted away. When their minute was up, he would order his gunnery crews to open fire on the defunct battleship, but only to target non critical areas. After all, he needed them to be taken alive.

But as he watched the ship on the holodisplays, counting away the seconds in his head, his crew of junior officers called to him and broke his concentration.

"Sir, we have an incoming vessel on our scopes."

"What? What class of vessel is it?" Homanlif asked as he keyed through the data feeds and brought the image of the incoming vessel onto one of his screens. He knew what sort of vessel it was before the junior officer responded, but he still let him answer.

"It's a Venator-Class star destroyer, the _Sunderer_, and she's hailing us, sir."

Homanlif let out a frustrated sigh and motioned for the nearest holodisplay as he readied himself to lash out at the annoyingly meddlesome Captain Hoyt. But as the holo image coalesced, he paused mid motion when he saw Admiral Phel standing with his arms crossed and a bemused expression on his face. Homanlif could tell that the Admiral was taking pleasure in his own dumbfounded expression, so he shook his shock away and snapped back into his proper military stance.

"Admiral Phel, what an _unexpected_ surprise to see you here," was all Homanlif could say without sneering obviously at his most hated enemy.

"I should say the same thing about you, _Captain_ Homanlif." Admiral Phel literally spat Homanlif's rank at him with all the wretched feeling he could muster. "The last I remember, you were supposed to be escorting Senator Organa to Coruscant. And yet, I received a report that you were gallivanting across the galaxy, first at Orto, and now here in this trash heap of a system, surrounded by Separatist ships. If I didn't know better, I would say you were conspiring against the Empire. Have you anything to say for yourself?"

Homanlif's cheeks were burning red with anger at Phel's blatant accusations. How dare he accuse him of being a traitor, when all that he has done was to help expose the real traitors to the Empire.

"I was operating under direct orders from Admiral-"

"Admiral Madoon?" Phel said with a knowing chuckle. "I'm afraid you're dear old Madoon is no longer a member of the Imperial Navy, and is facing charges of traitorous activities. Of course you would have heard of this if you were still following the orders that _I_ had given you. But, since you were following the orders of the former and traitorous Admiral Madoon, your own actions are now under question. Therefore, I order you to stand your ship down, lower your shields, and enter into my custody to stand trial. If you refuse, I'll be forced to give the order to open fi-" Admiral Phel was cut short by a sudden and ferocious barrage of turbo laser fire that erupted from the Lucrehulk battleship.

* * *

Randal stared blankly at the extra unwanted visitor for several tensely quiet seconds before he snapped out his trance and jumped over to one of the control stations.

"How many of the systems do you have online?" Randal asked quickly as he began to hit several of the buttons on the control station. Geefive twittered a quick response, and Randal nodded his head as he continued to flip switches in what seemed like a random sequence.

"What are you doing?" Rika asked as she looked over his shoulder.

"Trying to see how much power this bucket of bolts still has in her. Looks like we've got about 50% of the main reactor; I doubt we'll be able to get much more out of her without a crew down there. I can get the shields up from here, but fire control is over there," he said as he pointed out a control panel that was on the opposite side of the main control station. Rika moved quickly to the station and looked the controls over once before she began to input commands.

"Looks like only three of the turbolaser batteries are online and we have about half a dozen missile pods, but I'm not sure what's loaded in them."

"Who cares what's in them, just fire everything you've got at those ships!" Randal yelled as he brought the shields online. Rika had to fight back the urge to yell back at Randal; the spacer was really testing the limits of her Jedi discipline during these stressful moments. As she clenched her jaw in an attempt to suppress her un-Jedi-like anger at Randal, she keyed in the commands and the turbolaser batteries opened fire with a brilliant display of red searing energy.

The first barrage hit the Venator on her broadside, causing dozens of explosions to ripple along her hull. Unlike the Acclamator, her shields were not powered up. After the initial barrage took them by surprise, the Venator began to turn to fully face the Lucrehulk in combat. The first hits were lucky, but now her shields were powered up.

Rika haphazardly typed in coordinates for the missile pods, and hit the red launch button with her flattened palm. From spread out locations along the hull, the six missile pods flared, and their payloads were launched. Rika watched the display monitor as she tracked the progress of her missiles. Two of them were shot down by the gunnery crews of the Acclamator, three missed their targets all together, but the final one continued on, and just before the missile reached the hull of the Acclamator, the missile broke open with a pressurized explosion and launched its contents all over the hull of the white ship.

At first Rika didn't know what the missile was holding, but soon she recognized the bug-like pistoeka sabotage droids, better known as buzz droids. Hundreds of them were in the one missile, and they now covered the hull of the Acclamator. Wasting no time, the small army of droids began to attack the ship's hull, cutting deep into the armor plating and reaching the vital portions of the ship in a matter of seconds.

The running lights of the Acclamator began to flicker, and as the maneuvering thrusters brought her into a battle position compared with the Lucrehulk, the control over these systems was severed, and the ship simply listed away and out of the battle.

* * *

Captain Homanlif ran over to the display controls and keyed the display to show the Lucrehulk. He sneered violently as he saw the ship's turbolasers firing freely, each blast aiming for both his ship and the _Sunderer_.

"Bring us around to firing position! Prepare all weapons to open fire on my command!" Homanlif shot out to his crew. Below him, he could feel the deckplates vibrate as the _Rapture_began to turn.

"Sir, we have incoming missiles!"

"Gunnery crews, take out those missiles!" he barked as he changed his holodisplay to show the missiles. He continued to watch as two of the missiles were shot down, and three more fell far from their target. But the last missile made it through their defensive net, and exploded several dozen meters away from the hull. He didn't have to see them to know that hundreds of buzz droids were now pouring out and tearing away at his hull.

"Quickly, reroute all power to the shield generators! Reverse the shields polarization and charge the generators to maximum. When I give the signal, release the built up power in a single burst. That should ionize those droids." But before his orders could be carried out, the lights aboard his ship began to flicker, and the display monitors began to cut in and out.

"Sir! We've lost all control!" With the power no longer under their command, the inertial compensators began to malfunction, and the uncontrollable movements of the ship sent many of her crew off balance.

"Damn! We'll have to release the power in the shields manually! Get engineering crews to the manual releases now!"

"Yes Sir!"

Homanlif briefly lost his balance, but caught himself on the control panel. In-between the flickers of his display monitor, he saw the Lucrehulk continuing her assault on the _Sunderer_.

The _Rapture_ shuddered witheringly, like an animal in its last death throes, and the onboard lights failed completely.

"Sir! We've lost all communication with Engineering!" one of the junior officers yelled. Homanlif let out a resigning sigh as he looked over the bridge for what he knew would be his final time. As quickly as the buzz droids were tearing through his ship, there wouldn't be enough time to send a runner down to give the orders to the Engineering crew before those droids reached the main reactor. And if they reached the reactor, the entire ship would go along with it.

"Give the order to abandon ship, and get to your escape pods." With a quick affirmative, the crews sounded the annoyingly dreadful alarm which was accompanied by a pulsing yellow light; the signal for all hands to abandon ship.

Before he left to make his way to his escape pod, Homanlif looked at the flickering holodisplay that still showed the Lucrehulk and narrowed his eyes in anger at the ship. With a sneer of pure hatred, he vowed he would see the end of Sarn and his Twi'lek companion if it was the last thing he ever did in life.

As he reached his escape pod and strapped himself in, the irony of the situation finally hit him. Twice now he had lost his ship in this sector; twice he now faced what could very well be the end of his career.

* * *

"Therefore, I order you to stand your ship down, lower your shields, and enter into my custody to stand trial. If you refuse, I'll be forced to give the order to open fi-" Admiral Phel stopped short when a sudden blindsiding attack rocked the _Sunderer_, sending him falling to the deck.

"What the blazes?" Phel yelled aloud as he stood back up. Alarm klaxons and flashing red lights were going off everywhere, and the command crews were frantically checking over their systems down in their station bays.

"Raise the shields, bring us to bear on that battleship," Captain Hoyt ordered as he ran a hand over his misaligned hair.

"Who's firing on us; Homanlif?!?" the Admiral asked angrily.

"No sir, it's coming from that Lucrehulk." Phel looked surprisingly out of the viewport and found the sight of a once defunct ship opening fire on his own to be both shocking and insulting. As he watched, he saw several missile pods flair to life, and after one of the missiles set loose its contents all over Homanlif's ship, he shook his head at the Captain's incompetence as the _Rapture_ began to list uncontrollably away from the field of battle.

"Concentrate all fire on their turbolaser batteries. Once they're out of commission, I want a full boarding team sent over and any found on board arrested."

"Yes sir!" Captain Hoyt said before he put the Admiral's orders into action.

* * *

A large cascade of sparks erupted wildly from a control station on the bridge of the Lucrehulk droid control ship. Randal raised his arm to shield his face from the acrid smoke, and ran to where Rika was standing, still running her hands over the controls.

"We're losing shields fast and they've all ready taken out one of the turbolasers," Rika said over the sound of another station exploding.

"How much time do you think we have?" Randal asked.

"At best a few minutes before the shields go down, then only a couple of more until they blow this ship back into scrap. You have a plan?"

"Plan?!? It was your idea to come onto this bucket of bolts, Sweetheart. I'm just making this up as I kriffing go." Randal looked around seemingly aimlessly, and then his gaze fell on the navigator's station. Just as Rika's countenance furrowed into a look of utter annoyance and she was about to lose her grip on her emotional control and let the annoying spacer have a piece of her mind, he smirked wildly and ran to the navigator's station.

"Geefive, take all the safeties off of the hyperdrive and navicomputer." Rika's angry expression changed instantly to one of pure confusion. Geefive turned his dome towards Randal and let out a series of twitters, but Randal waved any concerns of the droid's away.

"I know, I know; but just do it. Trust me." Rika ran over and looked at Randal quickly manipulating the navi-controls, selecting what seemed like a random hyperspace destination on the far side of the galaxy.

"I don't understand, we can't make the jump to lightspeed in this debris field; besides, there's not enough power from the reactor to get us there."

"Don't worry, she's only got to go a few hundred kilometers," Randal quickly said as he finished up putting in the commands. Rika was even more confused than before, but once she actually looked at the plotted course, specifically the entry point to hyperspace, she realized that Randal indeed had no intention on flying the old battered battleship out of the system.

"You're crazy," was all she could muster. Randal shrugged his shoulders and then grabbed Rika by the wrist and started to head towards the turbolift.

"Thanks, come on Geefive, we're blowing this rust bucket."

As they rode the turbolift down, the lift jerked from side to side as the ship was buffeted by the constant onslaught of the _Sunderer_.

"How long did you give us?" Rika asked once she got over the sheer audacity of Randal's last ditch effort.

"Three minutes. That ought to give us enough time to get back to the _Destrier_ and fly out of this death trap." Once the turbolift doors opened, the trio quickly made their way out, but nearly fell to the floor when the ship shuddered violently with an explosion.

"The deflector shields must have collapsed!" Rika yelled as she picked herself up. Randal nodded with a frown and they started to run down the corridor to the hangar area.

"We better hurry; I don't really want to find out just how long it would take one of those star destroyers to blow a ship this big into scrap. Geefive, get that blast door open!"

Geefive whistled an affirmative and wheeled ahead at his fastest speed. Rika picked up her pace, not wanting to stick around on this death trap any longer, but as she entered the hangar area, she caught a tremor in the Force; a cold calculating feeling that seemed to be coming from just on the other side of the corridor entrance. If it wasn't for that brief glimpse, she wouldn't have seen it coming.

Randal continued to run, and was glad to see the _Destrier_ in one piece just as he had left her, but was surprised when he saw Rika literally stop dead in her tracks. Before he could even begin to contemplate what had made her do this, a sudden movement from his left caught in the corner of his eye.

Morthiath wasted no time, and quickly extended his right arm and aimed his long barreled heavy blaster pistol at the cause of all his misfortune: Randal Sarn. But just as he was about to pull the trigger, a simple action that would have brought him more gratification and satisfaction than all of the pleasure houses in the galaxy combined, a lightning quick swing from a blue blazing lightsaber severed his blaster in two.

Acting purely on rage-driven instinct, Morthiath backhanded Rika square in the mouth, sending her flying backwards to land flat on her back, her lightsaber skipping away from her hand.

Randal was at first struck immobile by the quick reflexes of Rika; one moment she was suddenly stopping from a dead sprint, another she was spinning around with her lightsaber blazing above her head and brought it crashing down on Morthiath's blaster in a lethal arc. But once he saw her go flying to the deck, he became unfrozen and quickly drew his blaster.

But Morthiath was driven by a primal rage locked away in his ancestory; a secular group of Zabraks long known for their savagery and bloodlust. It was this primal bloodlust that griped him now as he charged headlong into Randal, tackling him in the midsection and taking Randal to the ground. The unexpected blow hit Randal with all of Morthiath's weight, driving both the air from his lungs and the blaster from his hand.

As Randal hit the deck hard, he tried to strike Morthiath with his fists, but his blows weren't delivering much power as he tried to regain his breath. Morthiath pressed his forearm deep into Randal's throat and snarled menacingly as he looked Randal straight in the eye. Randal looked back, and could see the pure insanity that now griped his foe.

Randal coughed and hacked and out of pure survival instinct, swung his right fist with all the power he could muster and struck Morthiath cleanly in the cheek. While it didn't do much, it was enough to drive the insane man off of him, and released the hold he had on his throat.

As Morthiath fell off of Randal, Randal turned onto his stomach and raggedly gasped for breath. As the long missed air filled his lungs, it set them ablaze with pain.

Rika was stunned by just how fast Morthiath was able to strike her, and with such ferocious power. She dizzyingly got back to her feet and called her lightsaber back to her hand just as Randal punched Morthiath off of him. She was about to run to his aide, but the hangar was filled with a loud droning sound that she found all too familiar: a LAAT/i, and it was coming in hot.

Through the now opening blast doors, she could see the gunship pivoting and setting down. It would only be a matter of seconds before the two twin bay doors opened and the deadly efficient armor clad stormtroopers would pile out.

In this moment, she was torn by what she should do. Should she run to the aide of Randal, and risk giving the stormtroopers a clear advantage, or should she put up a defense against the soldiers and hope that Randal would pull through? As Randal looked up from his gasping stance, he could see the landing gunship and could also see Rika trying to make up her mind.

"Go," he said, his voice sounding heavily strained and hoarse. "I've got this." Rika nodded firmly, and activated her lightsaber as she ran to meet the Empire's best.

After Randal watched Rika turn to face the incoming soldiers, he saw his blaster pistol laying on the deck. He reached out for it, but it was just out of his reach. As he went to move closer towards it, Morthiath grabbed his right leg by the boot.

Randal turned back over onto his back by the sheer force Morthiath was showing, but he quickly countered with a swift kick to Morthiath's face with his free boot. Morthiath's head rocked back violently from the blow, but his grip never faltered. Instead, Morthiath affixed Randal with another glare born from pure hatred, and reached forward, pulling Randal's torso towards him by the collar of his shirt.

Acting on pure instinct, Randal swung his own head forward as fast as he could, and struck Morthiath's skull with the crown of his own. The blindingly white pain stung worse than he could have imagined, but it must have hurt Morthiath as well, because the primal beast let go of Randal and fell backwards. Randal blinked rapidly and tried to shake off the throbbing pain as he again went for his blaster.

When the bay doors opened, and the stormtroopers started to pour out, Rika entered into the classical defensive stance of Soresu. The first few troopers who disembarked were mildly taken back by seeing a Jedi here on this ship, but if they were really shocked their actions didn't show it. The troopers opened fire, but Rika simply deflected the bolts away; too many of them were incoming for her to concentrate on sending them back at her attackers.

But as she continued to stand in one place, deflecting the incoming blasts, more and more troopers were pouring out of the gunship. Knowing that she couldn't deflect every one of the blasts, she seized on a split second of a moment when the firing wasn't as heavy. With a quick charge, she sent a blasting Force push into the group of stormtroopers. While the blast wasn't at its full strength due to the minimal amount of time she had to get it ready, it disorientated the stormtroopers just enough for her to jump forward and get into striking distance.

With blisteringly quick strikes, she cut into the ranks of stormtroopers, taking them down one by one. Just as quickly as her attack had begun, it was finished. When it was over, she looked down at the twelve dead men and couldn't help but feel regret. Just a few days before, she had led men just like these into battle, trusting them with her life just as they trusted theirs with her, and she had fought alongside them in a war that now made little sense, but had brought so much death and destruction to the galaxy. But before she let her mind dwell on thoughts like those for too long, she remembered that they had to get off of this ship and only had moments to do so.

This time Randal seized on Morthiath's being thrown back as he lunged forward and grabbed the handle of his blaster. Behind him, he could hear Morthiath getting back onto his feet, and acting quickly, Randal spun back around onto his back and leveled the blaster at Morthiath's chest. Morthiath paused momentarily in his bloodlust and sneered at seeing the upraised weapon.

"Go frag yourself," Randal said defiantly before he pulled the trigger, hitting Morthiath square in the chest. The impact pushed Morthiath back, but his bloodlust kept him on his feet. Not waiting to see if he would fall or not, Randal fired twice more, hitting Morthiath both times. The final shot hit him squarely between the eyes, and the force of the impact sent his lifeless body flying backwards.

Rika ran over to Randal and helped him up. He tried to stand fully on his own two legs, but the dizziness from the headbutt made him sway off to the side. Rika helped steady him and gave him a concerned look.

"You okay?"

"I'll be a lot better once we're off this thing, come on!" Though wobbly, Randal led the way to the _Destrier_, where Geefive was twittering anxiously and rocking back and forth as he told them how little time they had.

"I know, I know! Close that ramp and get up here!" Randal yelled as he ran to the cockpit and jumped into the pilot's chair. Rika quickly strapped herself into the copilot's chair and pressed herself firmly against its back as Randal engaged the repulsorlifts with no regard for comfort.

With a jarring motion, Randal swung the _Destrier_ around to face outwards and engaged the engines, rocketing them off towards the hangar bay entrance. Rika gripped the armrests of her chair in a death grip as Randal pushed the _Destrier_ along at nearly her top speed. How he was avoiding all of the cranes and pylons in the hangar, she couldn't tell, not even with the Force.

"I thought you were dizzy?" she asked nervously.

"I'm better now," was all he said as he again pushed the throttle forward.

As if by the sheer will of the Force, the hangar entrance came into view and the _Destrier_ erupted out back into the harsh vacuum of space. Wasting no time, Randal pushed the control yoke down and turned it violently to starboard, sending the _Destrier_ into a brutal dive away from the two fighting capital ships.

Just as they cleared the bottom of the Lucrehulk's hull, both Randal and Rika looked up to see the out gassing from the large ship's maneuvering thrusters, which were now bringing her onto her preprogrammed flight path. Randal smirked to himself as he watched the Venator star destroyer continue to fire at the large ship, unaware of why the other was changing its position.

But if they could have seen what was coming, they would have tried to move out of the way, or at least evacuate their own ship.

With a blindly intensifying glow, the Lucrehulk's engines powered up to full, and all the fury of Chaos erupted. In what was only a second or two, the Lucrehulk surged forward as it entered hyperspace, but before it fully engaged, it collided full on with the Venator, erupting both ships in a brilliantly vicious explosion that rivaled the power and brightness of D'onva Prime. A massive shockwave of energy erupted from the epicenter of the explosion, and it took all of Randal's piloting skill to maintain control as the shockwave passed over them. The bright explosion engulfed them, and even though the cockpit's transparasteel automatically dimmed to its darkest setting, the blinding flare still filled the cockpit. After a matter of only a few seconds, the _Destrier_ leveled out, and the transparasteel returned to its standard setting.

Randal let out a long weary breath and powered the throttle down. Rika lightly shook her head in pure disbelief at what they had just done. She flipped the control for the rear view scanner, and took in a reassuring deep breath as she gazed at the still glowing wreckage of the two ships. Little was still left, not enough to identify which piece of wreckage went with what ship. As she messed with the scanners, she found the other ship, the _Rapture_, now covered in small explosions and fires in the vital areas where the buzz droids had done their work. With a reassured gesture, she turned the viewscreen off and relaxingly rested the back of her head on the headrest and closed her eyes.


	17. Epilogue

What the Future Holds…

_D'onva, Outer Rim_

Rika stood on the edge of the docking platform, gazing out at the setting sun, but not paying it any attention. Behind her, the sounds of the cargo droids unloading the containers from the _Destrier_'s holds could be heard in-between the rumbles of the waves crashing on the cliff side a dozen meters down. Earlier she had been with Randal while he was discussing the payment with their contact, but other thoughts were dwelling on her mind. Now, as she lifted her chin and let the warm rays of the setting sun touch her face, she was wrapped in a feeling that she had only experienced twice before; uncertainty.

The first time she experienced this, it was only days before her thirteenth birthday. She hadn't yet been selected by a Jedi Master to become their Padawan, and if it didn't happen by her birthday, she was going to have to join one of the Jedi Service Corps divisions. She remembered feeling helpless at that time. All her life she had been preparing herself to be trained as a Padawan and then become a Jedi Knight, not to go into the Service Corps. Though it wasn't firmly established, and no one would say as such, everyone knew that that was where the unworthy ended up. Failures, in everything but official title. But as if the Force had other intentions for her, Master Mindar had selected her and promised that she would become a great Jedi.

Then four years later, the tensions between the Republic and those that wished to secede came to its erupting point at Geonosis. As she and her master traveled back to Coruscant under emergency orders, she again felt the heavy veil of uncertainty fall over her. All her training told her that Jedi were agents of peace and justice, but now they were expected to not only become warriors, but to be leaders of entire battalions into combat? It was such a stark difference than everything she had come to know and accept that she was at a loss for how she should react. Again, it was Master Mindar that had shown her the way, and showed her how one could be a warrior, and yet still be a Jedi, still be able to look at herself in the mirror and see herself in the light; no matter how difficult that was at times.

But now, now she was faced with her greatest feeling of uncertainty, of a total lack of even a glimmer of what was to come, and there was no Master Mindar here to lead her through the fog. Before today, she thought that she could be able to continue to fight, and unite other surviving Jedi and together find a way to take down this deceiving Sith Lord who now called himself Emperor. But after the fight on the Lucrehulk, she could see just how foolish she was. She could now see why Yoda had warned her against fighting the Empire outright. One lone Jedi was far outmatched against the might of the Empire, but if she didn't fight, what else would she do? What would the future hold for her now?

Behind her, Randal cleared his throat as he approached. It didn't take a mind reader to see that she was deep in her own thoughts and he didn't want to startle her, even though she was probably able to sense his presence anyway. She briefly looked away from the sunset and lightly nodded her head before she returned to her mental wanderings. Randal stood there beside her for an uncomfortable moment in silence, and was about to turn to leave her with her thoughts when she spoke.

"So what's next?" Randal shrugged his left shoulder and raised his brow.

"Well, the cargo droids are just about done, and the creds have been deposited in my account. Geefive's getting replacement parts for the _Destrier_…"

"No, that's not what I meant. I mean, where do we go from here? Do we go further out into the Outer Rim, or do we sneak our way back into the Core and try to avoid being captured before we find any others?" Randal took in a deep breath, and then let it out as he shrugged his shoulders.

"Well, what do you want to do?"

"I wish I knew," she said quietly and lowered her chin to rest on her chest. Randal looked at Rika with concern and tried to think of something to say. While he was a skilled pilot, often boasting that if it had a thruster and a control stick he could fly it, he knew he lacked the ability to be reassuring. That was a skill that no amount of time in a simulator or in an academy could teach you. He knew he would just have to play it by ear. Randal reached out and placed his hand on her shoulder.

"Look, if I was a Jedi and was looking to get away from the Empire, I'd go out into the Tingel Arm. The Republic never stretched that far, and I doubt the Empire would even bother with it. What little is even out there is claimed by the Corporate Sector Authority. If there was one corner of the galaxy that a Jedi would be safe from the Empire, it's out there. Besides, there's a lot of credits out there to be made."

"So that's where we'll go. The very edge of the galaxy. It's fitting in a way," Rika said as she looked up again at the sunset.

"Hey," Randal said gently as he turned Rika by the shoulders to look at him. "We'll find other Jedi out there, trust me." Rika looked up into Randal's dark brown eyes and lightly smirked.

"You've said that before."

"And have I steered you wrong yet?"

* * *

A/N: And there it is, the final chapter of this story. I want to thank all of those who have taken the time to read this O.C. centric tale (I know it's harder to get into a story when it doesn't revolve around canon characters). I also want to thank everyone who left a review or added this story as a favorite. If you got this far and enjoyed it (or didn't for that matter), let me know! I'm always looking for ways to improve upon my work. I think my writing style is easy to follow and conveys the point across, but then again, I'm on the other end of the keyboard and don't have your particular point of view on it.

As for Randal and Rika, their adventures will obviously continue. Look for them in the next installment of the series in the upcoming weeks!


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